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THE   NEW    NEW    GUINEA 


HIS    EXCELLENCY   THE    LIEUT.-GOVERNOR   OF    PAPUA 
MAJOR   J.  H.  P.  MURRAY 

IN   THE    UNIFORM    OK    THE    NEW  SOUTH   WALES    FORCES   SERVING    IN 

SOUTH    AFRICA 

Frontispiece. 


THE    NEW 

NEW   GUINEA 


BY 

BEATRICE    GRIMSHAW 


author   of 
"in  the  strange  south  seas" 

"from    FIJI    TO    THE    CANNIBAL    ISLANDS  ' 
ETC. 


WITH     FORTY-NINE    ILLUSTRATIONS 

AND    A    MAP 


PHILADELPHIA 
B.     LIPPINCOTT     COMPANY 
LONDON  :   HUTCHINSON    &r-   CO. 
191 1 


Printed  in  Great  Britain 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   I 

PACK 

What  is  Papua  ? — The  tropical  martyr — How  not  to  see  Queens- 
land—Beche-de-mer— The  inevitable  "  B.P."— The  history 
of  Papua — Port  Moresby  ,  .  .  .  i 

CHAPTER    II 

The  sea  villages  of  Port  Moresby — Motuan  trading  instinct — A 
visit  to  the  Bird-cage  houses — The  curse  of  Babel — How  to 
catch  a  murderer — Village  dancers — The  cold  country  of 
New  Guinea — A  start  for  the  Astrolabe — What  is  a  swag  ? 
In  jail  .  .  .  •  •         •        34 

CHAPTER    III 

Along  the  Laloki — Wonderful  Rona — The  country  of  copper 
— A  roadside  camp — A  plantation  bungalow—  Where  are 
the  English  ? — The  humours  of  manslaughter — Up-and- 
down  country — The  daily  lucky-bag — "  Heaven  sends  wal- 
nuts .  .  ." — Unknown  fauna  of  New  Guinea— On  the  long 
trail  again    .  .  .  ...        70 

CHAPTER   IV 

The  simple  savage  and  his  simple  life — Off  to  the  Purari  River 
— A  day  aground — Western  war  canoes — The  town  of  the 
devil-temples — "  Pig  !  " — Plantation  recruiting — The  secret 
of  the  Rabi — Into  the  innermost  chamber — What  is  it  ? — 
Lost  in  the  delta — The  praying  of  the  Mantis — The  light 
that  failed — lai,  the  place  to  spend  a  happy  day — "Tha- 
latta ! "         .  .  .  .  ..114 


2038658 


vi  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

CHAPTER  V 

PAGE 

Among  the  rubber  plantations — Prospects  of  Para — The  gold- 
mine of  the  soil — Land  that  goes  begging — The  cost  of 
rubber — About  the  cocoanut — A  sisal  hemp  plantation — 
Ficus  rigo — A  splendid  sugar  country — Timbers  still  un- 
touched       .  .  .  .  .  .      159 

CHAPTER   VI 

The  wizard  and  the  crocodile — Training  for  sorcery — The 
Great  Fly  River — To  Thursday  Island — The  pearl  fishers 
— "  Walking  alone  in  the  depths  of  the  sea " — Wicked 
Goari-Bari — Willie  and  the  soap — The  scene  of  Chalmers' 
murder — A  bit  of  boiled  man — The  rescue  of  Chalmers' 
bones — The  incredible  West — Very  nearly  an  adventure — 
The  hysterical  man-eaters — Order  of  the  Imperial  Shirt — 
The  loyalty  of  Kaimari  .  .  .  .      199 

CHAPTER   VII 

Eastward  in  the  Merrie  England — The  prettiness  of  Samarai — 
"Very  feverish" — Hunting  the  Japs — The  island  world 
again — What  they  did  in  Milne  Bay — A  day  in  the  gold 
mines — The  man  who  lost  his  head — The  unbelievable  island 
— Did  they  eat  the  Chinamen  ? — A  two  days'  man-hunt — 
Where  the  money  is  made  .  .  .  .257 

CHAPTER    VIII 

Sud-Est  and  its  Queen — Historic  jewels  of  Papua — Two  brave 
Mrs.  Crusoes — A  new  voyage  of  Maeldune — Unchaperoned 
Sim-Sim — The  Island  of  Silence — Too  good  to  be  true — 
The  curious  Trobriands  —  Catching  fish  with  kites — A 
ghastly  locket — The  gentle  art  of  poisoning — Strange  fruits 
— The  pearls  in  the  dust  heap— Back  to  Port  Moresby        .      297 

APPENDIX 

How  to  reach  Papua  .  .  .  •  •      3^7 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


His  Excellency  the  Lieut.-Governor  of  Papua,  Major  J.  H.  P. 
Murray,  in  the  uniform  of  the  New  South  Wales  forces 
serving  in  South  Africa  .  .  .    Frontispiece 


TO    FA 

CE  PAGE 

Papuan  coastal  steamer        .                   .                   .               .          . 

i6 

Cattle  raised  in  Papua        .                                     .              .          . 

22 

Fort  Moresby  girls              .                  .                  .              . 

32 

The  tempestuous  petticoat  .                   .                  .              . 

36 

Native  canoe                        .                   .                  .              .          . 

42 

Dwarf  from  the  interior     .                  .                  .              . 

46 

Native  dancers  :  Northern  division 

50 

A  Papuan  barber                  .                   .                   .               . 

52 

Papuan  Government  nursery  for  supplying  economic  plants 

66 

Carriers  crossing  a  river      .                  .                  .              . 

76 

A  home  in  Papua                .                  .                  .              . 

80 

Native  house  servants          ,                   .                   .               . 

90 

The  village  beauty               .                   .                   .               . 

118 

Taken  by  surprise               ,                  .                  .              . 

126 

Main  street  of  Maipua        .                   .                   .               . 

130 

Purari  canoe                         .                  .                  .              . 

134 

The  bridge  that  failed        .                  .                  .              . 

138 

The  cannibal  temple            .                  .                  .              . 

142 

Making  sago                        .                  .                  .              . 

148 

Lost  in  the  delta                 .                  .                  .              . 

150 

lai  Town                               .                   .                   .               • 

156 

The  labourer's  welcome  home 

160 

In  the  lower  ranges              .                   .                   .               . 

166 

Building  a  planter's  house  .                  .                  .              . 

.     168 

The  empty  lands                  .                   .                   •               • 

170 

vii 

Vlll 


THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 


TO   FACE    I'AGE 

A  Papuan  high  road             .                   .                   ... 

172 

A  plantation  holiday            .                   .                   .              . 

176 

Cattle  farming  :   Sariba  Island              .                  ... 

188 

Labourers  in  the  gold-fields 

190 

Carriers  on  the  way  to  the  gold-mines 

196 

A  widow's  weeds  :   Fly  River 

206 

Fly  River  folk                     .... 

208 

"Willie"                             .... 

226 

Where  Chalmers  was  killed                 .                  .              . 

228 

The  bones  of  the  murdered  missionaries 

228 

The  6oo-feet-long  dubu      .                   .                   .               . 

230 

Aird  River  natives  (showing  the  flat  foot  of  the  swamp  country 

1     232 

A  patent  of  nobility            .                   .                   .              . 

242 

Dancing  masks  :   Gulf  of  Papua 

25  + 

Samarai  Island                     .                  .                  .              . 

258 

The  shores  of  Samarai       .                   .                   .               . 

260 

A  happy  afternoon              .                  .                  .              . 

266 

The  palmy  shores  of  Papua 

270 

Samarai                                 .                  .                  .              . 

•     274 

Misima  canoes                      .                   .                   .              . 

.     304 

Among  the  islands               .                   .                   .               . 

308 

Trobriand  village                 .                  .                  .              . 

.      310 

Trobriand  islanders             .                  .                  .              . 

.      312 

British  New  Guinea 


MAP 


to  face  page 


\i/ 


THE  NEW  NEW  GUINEA 


CHAPTER   I 

What  is  Papua  ? — The  tropical  martyr — How  not  to  see  Queensland 
— Beche-de-mer — The  inevitable  "  B.P." — The  history  of  Papua 
— Port  Moresby. 

TIKE  everybody  else,  I  thought  New  Guinea  be- 
longed to  England  ;  that  it  was  a  most  unget- 
atable  place  ;  that  it  was  inhabited  almost  solely  by 
the  fiercest  cannibals  in  the  world  ;  that  it  was  so 
unhealthy  as  to  be  called  the  "  White  Man's  Grave," 
and  that  there  was  nothing  worth  having  there  except 
Birds  of  Paradise. 

Even  after  spending  some  months  in  the  New 
Hebrides,  which  are  not  many  hundred  miles  re- 
moved from  the  great  island  continent  of  Papua,  I 
did  not  know  much  more  about  New  Guinea  than 
I  had  known  in  my  schoolroom  days  at  home.  The 
countries  of  the  Pacific  world  are  separated  from 
each  other  with  a  completeness  undreamed  of  in 
Europe.  The  New  Hebrides  know  nothing  of  New 
Guinea.  The  Fijis  are  ignorant  of  the  New  Hebrides. 
The  great  central  groups  —  Cook  Islands,  Tonga, 
Samoa  —  tell    fairy    tales    of    Fiji,    and    believe    the 

B 


2  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

Solomons  to  be  something  like  the  end  of  the  world. 
If  you  want  to  get  from  one  to  the  other,  there  is 
only  one  way  as  a  rule — take  ship  (when  you  can 
get  it)  to  Sydney,  or  possibly  to  Auckland  and 
thence  to  Sydney,  a  little  round  of  a  couple  of 
thousand  miles  or  so — then,  from  Sydney,  take  ship 
again  (if  there  is  one  to  be  had)  for  the  group  you 
wish  to  visit.  It  is  quite  possible  you  may  have  to 
travel  four  or  five  thousand  miles,  and  spend  two  or 
three  months  in  traversing  a  distance  that  is  only 
eight  or  nine  hundred  as  the  crow  flies.  That  is  the 
joke  of  Pacific  travel.  It  is  well  for  you  if  you  can 
see  the  humour  of  it. 

Of  course,  I  had  heard  tales  of  New  Guinea  in 
the  "  Islands."  There  was  a  trader  in  Niue — may 
he  see  this,  and  be  ashamed  ! — who  recounted  to  me 
some  of  his  amazing  experiences  up  the  Fly  River. 
"  I  was  purser  of  a  passenger  steamer  on  the  river," 
he  said,  "  and  I  assure  you  it  was  really  painful  to 
see  some  of  the  passengers  we  took  up.  There's 
gold  in  the  Fly,  you  know — it's  found  sticking  among 
the  roots  of  the  mangroves,  in  those  deadly  river 
swamps — and  prospecting  parties  go  out  to  get  it. 
We  used  to  find  the  remnants  of  them  later  on, 
yellow-faced  skeletons  staggering  out  of  the  swamps 
and  waving  a  quinine  bottle  full  of  gold  dust  at  us, 
to  get  a  passage  anywhere  away  from  the  place. 
We  took  up  one  party  of  fourteen,  and  afterwards 
brought  back  three — all  that  were  left." 

A  striking  anecdote,  well  told.   .  .   .   Four   years 


THE   TROPICAL    MARTYR  3 

later,  when  I  had  been  up  some  of  the  great  New 
Guinea  rivers,  had  seen  a  good  deal  of  the  country, 
and  realised  in  what  stage  of  civilisation  it  stood,  the 
tale  appeared  more  striking  yet.  If  there  are  pas- 
senger steamers  running  on  the  Fly  in  twenty  years* 
time  from  now,  the  Government  will  consider  itself 
fortunate.  If  there  is  ever  any  gold  found  on  the 
river,  it  will  consider  itself  more  fortunate  still.  And 
if  the  gold  so  far  departs  from  all  known  geological 
and  metallurgical  laws  as  to  be  found  conveniently 
sticking  in  the  roots  of  the  trees  that  stand  in  deep 
water  and  are  daily  washed  by  strong  tides,  the  whole 
country  will  no  doubt  make  pilgrimages  to  the  shrines 
of  the  Blessed  D'Albertis  and  Saint  William  Mac- 
gregor  to  offer  up  thanks  for  a  special  miracle. 

What  really  drew  my  attention  to  New  Guinea  as  a 
place  where  people  did  go  and  did  live  was  (paradoxi- 
cally enough)  a  death — the  suicide  in  1904  of  the 
Chief  Judicial  Officer,  who  was  temporarily  in  charge 
of  the  country.  The  tale  of  that  wretched  and  un- 
necessary disaster  will  be  told  in  another  place.  Its 
effect  upon  the  country  at  large  (strange  to  say)  was 
not  exactly  disastrous.  All  over  the  world  flashed 
the  startling  news  that  the  "  Governor  of  British 
New  Guinea  "  had  committed  suicide — had  shot  him- 
self dead  in  front  of  Government  House,  at  the  foot 
of  the  flagstaff  that  carried  his  country's  flag.  Such 
a  sensational  incident  was  bound  to  attract  attention 
to  the  colony,  and  it  did.  To  the  ordinary  citizen  it 
did   not   cast  any  discredit  on  Papua — people  com- 


4  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

mitted  suicide  everywhere — for  various  reasons  ;  but 
it  made  him  wonder  where  and  what  British  New 
Guinea  was,  and  occasionally  induced  him  to  look  it 
up  in  a  library.  The  seed  thus  sown  bore  fruit  later 
on  in  assisting  settlement. 

Like  the  other  ignorant  persons,  I  went  to  a  library 
and  began  to  read  up  New  Guinea.  I  found  out 
some  astonishing  things.  First  of  all,  England  did 
not  own  the  country.  Holland  had  a  liberal  half  of  it, 
and  Germany  a  quarter.  Our  share  looked  very  small 
till  one  began  to  compare  it  scale  for  scale  with 
European  countries,  and  it  then  appeared,  amazingly 
enough,  to  be  twice  as  big  as  England. 

The  scenery  was  said  to  be  very  fine,  and  the  bird 
and  insect  life  wonderful.  For  the  rest,  the  books 
told  of  cannibals  and  crocodiles,  fevers  and  snakes  and 
swamps,  unexplored  rivers,  unknown  mountains.  It 
sounded  interesting,  but  calculated  to  give  the  un- 
escorted woman  wanderer  food  for  rather  serious 
thought. 

Still — how  can  one  put  it  without  offending  a 
number  of  excellent  writers  and  worthy  travellers  ? — 
still,  I  was  conscious  of  a  doubt  somewhere,  like  the 
lady  in  Har^  Times  who  could  not  exactly  say  she 
had  a  pain,  but  thought  there  was  a  pain  somewhere 
in  the  room.  I  did  not  think  the  writers  lied.  But 
I  had  been  to  various  queer  places  on  the  surface 
of  earth  and  sea,  and  never  found  them  just  what 
they  were  represented  to  be.  It  was  clear  that  New 
Guinea  could  not  be  worse  than   it  was   made  out. 


THE   ROUTES   TO   NEW   GUINEA         5 

It    was    equally  plain,    therefore,  that    it    might    be 
better. 

Not  until  November,  1907,  did  I  get  a  chance  of 
finding  out  for  myself.  At  that  time,  other  engage- 
ments being  cleared  away,  and  much  talk  about 
British  New  Guinea  being  in  the  air,  after  its  recent 
transfer  to  Australian  government  under  the  title  of 
"  The  Territory  of  Papua,"  I  somehow  found  myself 
saying  good-bye  to  friends  who  evidently  regarded 
the  occasion  as  the  next  thing  to  a  funeral  on  board 
an  A.U.S.N.  steamer  at  an  obscure  Sydney  wharf — 
luggage  labelled  "  Port  Moresby." 

And  thereafter  came  ten  days  of  pure  happiness. 

The  routes  to  New  Guinea  are  not  nearly  so  long 
or  so  out  of  the  way  as  one  supposes,  looking  at  the 
isolated  position  of  the  country.  After  you  end  your 
luxurious  P.  and  O.  voyage  of  five  weeks  from  Mar- 
seilles, you  may  be  in  Port  Moresby  in  ten  days  if 
you  go  through  with  the  mails,  taking  train  part  of 
the  way.  If  you  go  by  A.U.S.N.  and  Burns  Philp 
boat,  you  will  be  there  in  a  fortnight,  travelling  along 
the  coast  of  Queensland.  If  you  take  the  Burns 
Philp  through  steamer  by  the  Solomon  Islands,  you 
will  be  three  weeks  on  the  road.  Each  route,  in  its 
way,  is  fascinatingly  interesting,  but  perhaps  the  best 
for  the  absolute  "new  chum"  is  the  Queensland  coast 
way,  as  it  allows  the  seven  times  wonderful  land  of 
Papua  to  produce  its  full  impression,  undimmed  by 
the  strange  sights  and  experiences  met  with  travel- 
ling through  the  Solomons. 


6  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

The  cut  of  a  sleeve  or  a  skirt,  the  fastening  of 
a  tie,  changes  not  more  surely  with  the  years  than 
does  the  cut  of  a  prevailing  emotion.  In  Gold- 
smith's day  the  traveller  was  of  necessity  more  or 
less  an  exile.  He  might — no  doubt  he  frequently 
did — enjoy  himself  extremely,  and  much  prefer 
foreign  countries  to  his  native  land.  But  it  was  not 
the  fashion  to  speak  or  to  feel  after  such  a  cosmopoli- 
tan style,  and  the  eighteenth-century  wanderer  was 
inexorably  constrained  to  sing  his  wanderings  in  a 
minor  key. 

His  grandson,  in  the  early  days  of  railways,  was 
content  to  regard  the  continent  of  Europe  as  an 
entirely  delightful  playground.  Tropical  climates, 
however,  were  his  especial  terror.  African  explorers 
who  suffered  unheard-of  things  from  sunstroke  and 
wild  beasts — Indian  officials  who  became  "nabobs" 
and  acquired  diseased  livers,  both  in  accordance  with 
some  mysterious  law  of  nature — represented  to  him 
the  only  connection  with  the  torrid  zones  that  was 
known  or  possible.  Nobody  went  to  the  lands  of 
monsoons  and  man-eaters  for  pleasure,  and  only  the 
most  amazing  discoveries  or  the  biggest  possible 
fortunes  could  compensate  anyone  for  the  hardships 
that  must  of  necessity  be  faced. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  this  idea  dies  hard,  and 
though  moribund,  is  not  yet  ready  for  its  coffin. 
People  in  general  will  allow  that  there  is  pleasure  in 
seeing  the  wonderful  East  and  the  amazing  South — 
— that  one  may  indeed  live  near  the  Line  for  a  few 


LIFE   IN    NEW   GUINEA  7 

years,  if  compelled  to  do  so — but  the  convention  of 
hardship  and  horror  still  lingers.  There  is  some- 
thing dreadful  about  the  tropics.  The  heat  is  a 
ceaseless  torture.  The  wild  beasts  and  reptiles  are 
a  constant  danger.  The  natives  are  always  ready  to 
murder  you.  The  gorgeous  scenery  may  be  all  very 
well,  much  as  a  painted  belle  in  a  ballroom  is  good  to 
look  at ;  but  one  would  give  a  thousand  miles  of  the 
one,  or  the  other's  whole  battery  of  charms,  for  a 
simple  green  English  lane  with  a  primrose  in  it,  or 
a  smile  from  an  innocent  country  lass.  .   .   . 

Which  is  all  very  pretty,  and  calculated  to  draw 
approving  murmurs  from  the  gallery.  But  it  does 
not  happen  to  be  true.  A  good  many  men,  if  put  on 
oath,  would  be  obliged  to  acknowledge  that  they  find 
the  society  of  the  finished  belle  more  amusing  than  the 
bread-and-milk  conversation  of  the  provincial  young 
woman.  A  good  many  people  who  keep  putting  off 
the  purchase  of  that  saloon  single,  outside,  amid- 
ships ticket  that  will  open  the  gate  of  the  country 
lane  and  silence  the  whisper  of  the  starlight-silvered 
palms  for  ever,  would  have  to  tell  you,  were  they 
sworn  to  truth,  that  the  tropic  world  is  almost 
wickedly  fascinating,  and  that  they  fear  they  will  feel 
a  little  out  of  place — ^just  at  first,  of  course — when 
they  go  home  to  stay.  .  .  .  But  then  what  becomes 
of  the  heroism,  the  wonder,  the  distinction,  of  living 
in  the  lands  that  to  "  most  people  "  are  only  a  geo- 
graphical expression  for  something  perilous  and 
unpleasant  : 


8  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

No,  it  is  time  that  somebody  really  told  the  truth 
about  these  wicked  tropics  ;  that  the  augurs  who 
have  resided  in  Calcutta  or  Colombo,  Townsville, 
Cooktown,  or  Fiji,  Buenos  Ayres,  Barbados,  or 
Singapore,  should  cease  to  wink  at  one  another  when 
they  meet  in  London  drawing-rooms  and  hear  each 
other  relating  frightful  tales  of  suffering  and  depriva- 
tion. •  .  .  Here,  on  the  big  comfortable  Australian 
steamer,  with  warmer  and  warmer  breezes  blowing  in 
upon  the  dainty  sea-blue  curtains  and  cushions  and 
cool  white  enamelled  panelling,  every  day — with  a 
keener,  more  crystalline  sun  dancing  each  morning 
on  the  waveless  sea  that  lies  inside  the  Great  Barrier 
Reef — with  clean  white  clothes  coming  out  all  over 
the  ship,  and  passengers'  mattresses  mysteriously 
appearing  like  night-blooming  flowers  upon  the  pro- 
menade decks  when  the  moon  gets  up — with  a  sense 
of  lazy  ease  and  hurry-no-man's  cattle  drifting  down 
on  each  of  us  like  a  blessing  sent  by  Marconigraph 
from  the  gods  of  Cancer  and  Capricorn — here,  going 
north  and  north  and  north  along  immense  Australia, 
to  the  countries  of  the  crocodile  and  the  palm  once 
more,  the  passengers  look  like  nothing  in  the  world 
less  than  martyrs. 

One  must  confess  that  it  is  more  or  less  the  fashion 
to  complain  of  one's  lot,  even  among  these  con- 
tented-looking: beings.  It  seems  that  there  is  a  famine 
of  theatres,  music-halls,  and  races  in  the  hot  countries  ; 
that  you  have  to  do  your  shopping  by  steamer, 
and   only   get    your   newspapers    at    intervals.     You 


THE    WAY   TO   SEE   QUEENSLAND      9 

see  too  much  of  the  same  small  set  of  people.  There 
is  not  enough  of  variety  in  the  food.  The  mosqui- 
toes are  troublesome.  ...  It  is  exactly  the  same 
tone  of  complaint,  somewhat  varied  in  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  notes,  that  one  has  heard  in  London,  in 
America,  in  every  corner  of  the  earth  where  necessity 
compels  men  to  earn  their  bread  under  conditions 
short  of  Paradise.  .  .  .  One  seems  to  remember, 
too,  that  the  catering  and  the  amusements  did  not 
satisfy,  even  in  the  original  garden. 

All   the   same,   the   passengers  are  quite  evidently 
"going  back  to  Dixie,"  and  not  sorry  to  go. 

The  way  to  see  Queensland — if  you  are  not  going 
to  see  it — is  to  travel  up  the  coast  on  an  A. U.S.N. 
boat,  bound  for  Papua.  No  qualms  of  conscience  as  to 
mines  unvisited,  rising  pastoral  districts  unseen,  brand- 
new  town-halls  unadmired,  beset  the  steamer  traveller 
who  has  no  intention  of  doing  Australia's  second 
largest  and  most  interesting  State  otherwise  than  by 
lazily  looking  on  as  he  is  carried  past.  Like  Harold 
Skimpole,  who  could  lie  on  the  rug  before  a  good  fire, 
imaginatively  travelling  up  an  African  river,  and 
"seeing  the  wonderful  forms  of  the  foliage  just  as 
clearly  as  if  he  were  really  there,"  we  lie  in  our  deck 
chairs  day  after  day,  absorbing  iced  drinks  and  novels, 
imagining  the  mines  and  the  herds  of  cattle,  and 
looking  up  now  and  then  to  note  a  new  stretch  of 
exquisite  heliotrope-coloured  hills,  rising  away  in  the 
distance  behind  a  coast  of  creamy  gold,  or  to  see  a 
fresh  archipelago  of  little   bright  green    islets   rising 


lo  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

out  of  a  sea  that  is  rich  blue  without  the  reef,  warm 
aquamarine  within.  And  still  the  endless  coast  goes 
on.  And  still,  day  by  day,  we  come  to  baking  little 
towns  with  verandahed  tin-roofed  stores  and  houses, 
and  great  hotels  that  are  evidently  the  resort  of  thou- 
sands of  square  miles  of  townless  country.  And  we 
stop  to  take  up  cargo  or  passengers,  to  bring  all  the 
latest  news  and  mails,  and  to  give  the  people  a  change 
(strange  reversal  of  the  eager  rush  for  news  and 
diversion  from  ship  to  shore,  in  the  busy  ports  of  the 
Old  World  !  ).  And  each  of  the  towns  is  the  rising 
town  of  Queensland,  though  all  look  like  one 
another. 

But  at  Rockhampton,  if  my  memory  does  not  lie 
(perhaps  it  does — I  was  not  seeing  Queensland),  the 
first  of  the  palms  is  met  with,  a  mere  handful  of  dusty 
and  unhappy  featherbrooms  :  still,  a  landmark  of 
importance.  And  at  Cairns  you  get  out  and  go  to 
the  hotel  for  a  night,  and  do  not  go  to  see  the  Barron 
Falls,  and  feel  all  the  pleasure  of  one  who  boldly  and 
shamelessly  sins,  without  the  guilt.  But  you  walk 
about  the  town,  and  think  that  there  is  nothing  in  it 
so  interesting  as  the  stuffed  blue-helmeted  cassowary 
in  a  back-street  shop-window.  . . .  Somehow,  until  now, 
you  had  not  realised  that  there  were  actual  cassowa- 
ries anywhere  except  upon  the  plains  of  Timbuctoo  ; 
it  is  astonishing  to  know  that  in  Papua,  where  you 
are  going,  there  are  plenty  of  them,  and  to  see  for 
yourself  that  they  look  quite  tall  enough  to  eat  any 
member  of  the  L.M.S.   or  the   Methodist    Mission 


BECHE-DE-MER  n 

who  might  happen  to  incur  their  displeasure — not  for- 
getting the  "  hymn-book  too." 

Bcche-de-mer  cutters  and  schooners  abound  on  the 
Great  Barrier  Reef,  and  we  see  them  almost  every 
day.  The  b6che-de-mer  has  long  been  known  as  a 
dainty  to  the  Chinese,  than  whom  there  are  no  finer 
cooks  in  the  world,  but  it  is  only  of  late  years  that 
Europeans  are  beginning  to  realise  they  have  missed 
something  in  dismissing  this  hideous  sea  slug  as 
uneatable.  Once  taste  beche-de-mer  soup  in  a 
Queensland  hotel  or  private  house  where  they  know 
how  to  make  it,  and  you  will  never  say  thank-you  for 
turtle  again. 

There  are  many  kinds  of  beche-de-mer,  varying  in 
size,  in  colour,  and  in  value.  About  thirty  pounds  a 
ton  (dried)  is  the  price  of  the  worst  grades.  The 
better  grades  sometimes  rise  as  high  as  two  hundred. 
The  process  of  collecting  is  simplicity  itself.  The 
slugs  live  in  the  shallow  water  of  the  coral  reefs,  and 
are  picked  up  by  the  native  employees  of  the  boat- 
owners  without  any  trouble  of  hunting  or  catching. 
They  are  boiled,  cleaned,  smoked  for  twenty-four 
hours,  and  then  sold  to  the  large  exporting  dealers 
at  so  much  per  ton.  On  the  enormous  stretches  of 
the  great  Barrier  Reef  the  supply  is  practically  limit- 
less, and  a  good  deal  of  money  is  made  by  lucky 
traders.  1  heard  a  tale  at  Cairns  of  two  Sydney 
clerks  who  got  tired  of  their  work,  and  being  smart 
boatmen,  as  nearly  all  Sydney  young  men  are,  ran 
a   cheap  cutter   that   they   had   bought   right   up   the 


12  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

Australian  coast  to  the  reef.  A  few  black  "  boys " 
were  engaged  at  a  trifling  wage,  a  curing  hut  put 
up  on  an  uninhabited  island,  and  in  a  few  months  the 
two  enterprising  tape-measurers  had  made  several 
hundred  pounds.  .  .  .  Does  not  the  heart  of  the 
English  clerk  wax  faint  with  Gnvy  for  the  opportuni- 
ties of  his  Australian  brother  ?  If  any  couple  of  Mr. 
Peter  Robinson's  young  men  could  only  go  away  and 
make  a  little  fortune  in  the  summer  holidays,  catching 
and  drying  bloaters  off  the  Yarmouth  coast,  how 
many  young  men  learned  in  "  the "  ribbons,  and 
tactful  with  "  the "  haberdashery,  would  Mr.  Peter 
Robinson  have  ?  Just  as  many  as  Mr.  Farmer  or 
Mr.  Hordern  of  Sydney,  no  doubt.  He  that  will  to 
Cupar,  maun  to  Cupar  :  the  man  who  was  cut  out  by 
nature  for  a  manly  life  will  find  it,  if  it  lies  in  Yar- 
mouth or  Yucatan,  while  the  man  whom  an  all-wise 
Providence  has  intended  for  the  safe  and  the  gentle 
life,  will  not  stray  beyond  the  limits  of  his  fourpenny 
tram  for  all  the  songs  of  all  the  sirens  in  the  seven 
seas  of  the  world. 

We  came  into  Cooktown,  which  is  very  far  away 
indeed,  and  a  long  distance  past  the  railway  world,  in 
ten  days  after  leaving  Sydney.  I  have  not  forgotten  to 
tell  about  Brisbane,  which  I  saw  and  loved,  and  went 
back  to  by  and  by,  but  have  deliberately  left  it  out, 
because  it  is  dangerous  to  begin  talking  seriously  about 
anything  in  Queensland  if  one  does  not  want  to  be 
led  into  writing  a  book  about  it.     Queensland  is  so — 


COOKTOWN  13 

I  said  I  would  not — but  it  really  is  most — well,  go 
and  see  something  of  it  for  yourself,  even  if  you  can 
only  visit  Brisbane,  which  in  itself  is  .  .  .  Please 
change  the  subject. 

We    came    into    Cooktown,    as    I    said,    and    dis- 
embarked, for  the  coastal   steamer  goes   no   further, 
and  one  must  here  take  one  of  the  boats  of  the  wild 
and  wicked  Burns  Philp  Line  to  make  one's  way  on 
to  Papua.     I  do  not  mean  to  cast  any  aspersions  upon 
the  spotless  reputation  of  this  excellent,  pawky,  pious 
Scotch-Australian    shipping   firm,   nor    upon   the  be- 
haviour of  anyone  who  lives  upon,  or  travels  by,  its 
ancient   but   hardy    vessels.     One    instinctively   calls 
them  wild  and  wicked,  however,  as  one  used  to  call 
the    plains    of   Western    America    wild    and    woolly, 
because  of  the  prevailing  character  of  the  surroundings 
of  the  line.      B.P.'s  boats  go  nowhere  that  is  settled, 
nowhere  that  is  civilised,  nowhere  devoid  of  the  local 
colour   furnished  by   the    gentle   cannibal   (he    really 
is  gentle),  and  the  modest  head-hunter,  and  the  coy 
crocodile.    Their  captains  and  officers  have  one  and  all 
lived  lives  of  adventure  that  would  make  the  most 
lurid   of    blue-and-yellow   twopenny   dreadfuls   on    a 
cheap  tobacconist's  counter   read  like  a   kindergarten 
baby  prize.     Because  of  this,  they  are  very  quiet  and 
rather  blase  people  as  a  rule,  not  intensely  interested 
in  anything,  and  usually  ambitious  of  growing  beans 
for  Sydney  market  gardens,  or  living  in  a  bungalow 
up    the   Hawkesbury  River,  and   taking  in  boarders 
when — or  if — they  get  old. 


14  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

The  firm  are  keen  traders,  and  the  ships  generally 
go    out    of   port    staggering    with    cargo.     It    is    all 
prosaic  enough  to  "B.P.'s"  own   people  no  doubt, 
but  travellers  from  far  countries  cannot  help  having 
an   idea  that  there   is   something   quite   romantic    in 
making  your  money  out  of  pearl-shell  and  pearls  and 
sandalwood  and  cedar,  even  out  of  beche-de-mer  and 
cocoanuts — not  to   mention  ivorynuts,  tortoise-shell, 
dried   fungus,   and  half  a  score  other  odd  products 
about  which  most  people  know   nothing.     There  is 
always  vivid   local   colour  on   a   "  B.P."    boat,   quite 
apart  from   the  extraordinary  places  into  which   she 
is    sure   to   take   you.      She   will   have   native    boats' 
crews — half-tamed   savages   who  dress   in   a   rag  and 
a  dozen  necklaces,  and  do  war-dances  on  the  after- 
deck  in  the  moonlight  ;  there  will  be  yam  and  turtle 
and    other  strange   foods   among  the    dishes    at    the 
ordinary  saloon  meals  ;  you  are  almost  sure  to  have  an 
explorer  among  the  passengers  and  a  gold  prospector 
or  two,   and    a    queer,    dead-silent    or    devastatingly 
talkative  trader  from  the  back  of  nowhere,  who  has 
been   half-eaten  by  sharks,  crocodiles,   or  natives  at 
least    a    dozen    times,    and    who    has    been    so    long 
restricted    to    the    three    classes    of    society    above 
mentioned,  that  he  has  almost  lost  taste  for  any  other. 
And  as  you  near  the  New  Guinea  coast  .  .   . 

But  how  careless  to  have  left  out  Cooktown  ! 
Where  Captain  Cook  once  made  a  call,  eventually  to 
be  commemorated  by  a  statue  that  got  as  far  as  the 
pedestal  many  years  ago,  and  seems  likely   to  stop 


"NEW  CHUMS"  15 

there — where  there  is  a  large  street,  and  two  rows 
of  shops,  and  several  hotels  that  introduce  you  to 
the  unpleasing  Australian  custom  of  penning  guests 
in  scores  of  iron  tanks  or  cubicles,  all  under  one  hot 
iron  roof — where  the  mango  trees  grow  in  a  splendid 
double  avenue  all  down  the  street  as  big  as  English 
beeches,  and  hang  out  tantalising  green  ovoid  fruits 
that  will  be  ripe  in  just  a  few  days — after  we  have 
sailed  ;  where  you  can  go  driving  in  the  dust,  and 
see  many  low  mountains  covered  with  grey-green 
eucalyptus,  and  many  immense  anthills,  fifteen  feet 
high  and  more,  just  like  the  pictures  in  the  geography 
books.  .  .  .  Well,  one  cannot  go  back,  and  it  is  two 
days  since  we  left  Cooktown  now,  and  we  must  all  get 
up  early  to-morrow  morning,  for  at  daylight  we  shall 
be  in  sight  of  New  Guinea. 

The  "  new  chums  "  are  very  busy  absorbing  infor- 
mation, this  last  evening,  and,  like  most  travellers, 
they  know  a  good  deal  more  of  local  history  by  this 
time  than  the  residents  of  the  place.  We  have  been 
looking  things  up  on  the  A. U.S.N,  steamer,  more  or 
less,  but  the  extraordinary  prevalence  of  the  alligator 
story  along  the  whole  Queensland  coast  leaves  little 
room  for  general  reading  or  conversation.  As  every 
traveller  knows,  the  shark  story  dominates  most  tropic 
liners  ;  the  alligator  story  is  certainly  a  welcome 
change,  but  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  satisfies  the 
hunger  we  feel  for  minute  information  about  the 
country  we  are  going  to  see. 


1 6  THE    NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

As  the  Makambo  ploughs  along  to-night  over  a 
calm,  dark,  hot  sea,  with  thunder  somewhere  very 
near  us,  and  phosphorescent  gleams  twinkling  about 
the  bows,  one  of  the  voyagers,  at  all  events,  seated  in 
a  quiet  corner  of  the  deck,  is  thinking  seriously 
enough  about  this  strange  island-continent  lying  un- 
seen upon  our  beam,  and  wondering  how  it  is  that  in 
these  days  of  universal  exploration,  when  the  secrets 
of  South  America  are  almost  all  told,  and  even  Cen- 
tral Africa  and  Central  Asia  have  little  more  to  give, 
New  Guinea  should  still  flaunt  defiance  in  the  face  of 
all  research.  There  have  been  numberless  exploring 
parties,  but  not  one  has  done  all  that  it  set  out  to  do, 
though  each  has  added  a  little  to  our  knowledge  of  the 
interior.  Not  a  single  one  of  the  great  rivers  has 
been  traced  to  its  source.  Most  of  the  high  moun- 
tains have  not  been  ascended.  No  one  knows  what 
lies  in  the  great  blank  spaces  of  the  Western  Division 
of  Papua.  In  fact,  the  greater  part  of  the  country  is 
a  riddle  still  unread.   .  .   .  Why  ? 

I  leave  the  reason  to  disclose  itself  later  on,  and 
return  to  the  information  that  I  have  been  collecting 
out  of  various  books  owned  by  passengers  and 
officials. 

New  Guinea,  these  tell  me,  was  discovered  in  151 1 
by  Antonio  de  Abrea.  The  great  archipelagoes  of 
islands  lying  to  the  south  and  east  were  not  dis- 
covered until  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  by 
D'Entrecasteaux  and  other  French  navigators.  It  is 
amazing,  but  true,  that  the  whole  eastern  end  of  the 


SIR   THOMAS    M'lLWRAlTH  17 

country  remained  unmapped  and  unknown,  no  one 
being  able  to  say  where  the  great  "  tail  "  of  New 
Guinea  came  to  an  end  until  so  late  as  1873,  when  a 
British  man-of-war  charted  it  out. 

England,  in  the  person  of  her  more  enlightened 
statesmen  and  commanders,  made  no  less  than  three 
attempts  to  secure  a  footing  in  New  Guinea.  In 
1793  the  whole  country  was  annexed  by  officers  of 
the  East  India  Company,  and  an  island  in  Geelvink 
Bay  was  used  as  a  residence  for  British  troops.  The 
Government  of  the  day,  however,  refused  to  ratify 
this  wise  and  far-seeing  act.  In  i  873  Captain  Moresby 
annexed  some  of  the  islands  at  the  eastern  end  of  the 
country.  This  too  was  disapproved,  although  by 
now  the  Dutch  had  been  in  possession  of  the  whole 
western  half  of  the  country  for  generations.  In  1883 
a  still  more  determined  attempt  to  benefit  the  home 
country  against  its  will  was  made  by  the  late  Sir 
Thomas  M'llwraith,  Premier  of  Queensland.  This 
able  statesman,  alarmed  by  the  rumour  of  German 
annexation,  and  rightly  fearing  to  see  a  foreign  Power 
established  in  a  country  not  a  hundred  miles  from 
the  Australian  coast,  annexed  the  eastern  half  of  the 
country,  and  asked  in  terms  of  the  greatest  urgency 
for  a  ratification  of  his  action  from  the  Home 
Government. 

It  was  refused.  Lord  Derby,  at  that  time  Premier, 
was  opposed  to  the  idea  of  colonial  expansion,  and 
considered  the  Queensland  Minister's  fears  of  German 
aggression  to  be  unfounded.     He  did  not  hesitate  to 


1 8  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

say  so  in  a  biting  phrase  that  must  have  come  back 
to  his  memory  a  year  later,  when  Germany  actually 
did  take  possession  of  a  good  half  of  the  open  terri- 
tory and  of  the  better  part  of  the  Solomon  Islands. 
On  this  the  British  Government  so  far  relented  as  to 
allow  the  "  protection  "  of  the  remaining  portion  if 
the  Australian  Government  would  guarantee  ;;^  15,000 
a  year  towards  expenses.  Under  this  arrangement 
the  country  remained  a  dead  weight  upon  the  hands 
of  all  concerned  for  four  years,  after  which  it  was 
annexed  to  the  British  Crown,  and  for  seventeen 
years  simply  went  to  sleep.  It  is  a  little  hurtful  to 
one's  national  pride,  but  must  in  justice  be  admitted, 
that  British  administration  of  the  country  was  not  a 
success,  and  that  the  Australian  Government,  short  as 
its  time  has  been,  has,  on  the  contrary,  been  conspicu- 
ously successful. 

Concerning  various  administrators  who  held  the 
reins  of  British  New  Guinea  between  1884  and  1906, 
it  can  only  be  said  that  one  and  all  systematically, 
determinedly,  and  successfully  resisted  all  attempts 
towards  opening  up  and  developing  the  country.  I 
do  not  say  this  as  a  stranger  to  Papua — the  truth  had 
not  even  dawned  on  me  that  night  when  I  sat  on 
deck  and  conned  over  the  few  geographical  facts  that 
I  had  been  able  to  gather.  I  say  it  after  a  residence 
of  a  year  and  a  half  in  the  country,  after  meeting 
almost  every  white  person  in  it,  seeing  every  division, 
and  travelling  into  every  part  attainable  without  an 
exploring  expedition — after  seeing  and  talking  to  the 


THE    HISTORY    OF   PAPUA  19 

men  who  know  the  history  of  Papua,  here  and  in 
Australia,  and  after  reading  for  my  own  information 
a  mass  of  papers,  reports,  and  general  literature  dating 
back  nearly  thirty  years. 

This,  then,  is,  or  was,  the  reason  of  New  Guinea's 
apparent  uselessness  and  inaccessibility.  Difficult 
though  the  country  is  to  the  traveller — seriously  as 
development  has  been  handicapped  by  hostile  natives, 
local  fevers,  want  of  proper  roads — not  one,  or  not 
all,  of  these  dead-weights  has  pressed  down  the 
balance  half  so  far  as  the  real  clog  and  hindrance — 
the  fact  that  Papua's  rulers  wished  to  keep  the  place 
shut  up. 

There  are  two  sides  to  every  question.  Some  of 
those  who  held  the  destiny  of  the  country  in  their 
hands  were  moved  in  their  exclusive  policy  by  an 
honourable  wish  to  secure  the  welfare  of  the  native. 
It  really  seemed  to  them  that  this  could  best  be  done 
by  keeping  out  the  white  man,  except  in  so  far  as  he 
was  represented  by  missionaries.  They  feared  that 
planters,  miners,  traders,  would  corrupt  the  simple 
Papuan,  and  that  a  rapid  influx  of  white  population 
would  deprive  the  native  of  his  lands  and  condemn 
him  to  slavery. 

A  frivolous  little  volume  of  Barry  Pain's,  pub- 
lished some  year  ago,  contained  a  sentence  that  de- 
served wider  quotation  than  it  has  received — 

"  Bear  with  me,  dearest,  for  being  no  more  than 
I  am.  Many  people  are  no  more  than  they  are,  and 
one  has  to  put  up  with  it." 


20  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

One  must  bear  with  even  a  well-meaning  Colonial 
Administrator  for  being  no  more  than  he  is.  It  was 
not  the  fault  of  these  gentlemen — some  of  them 
honest  and  worthy  men — that  they  were  no  more 
than  they  were — that  they  thought  a  valuable  colony 
could  and  should  be  kept  in  the  pocket  of  anyone  ; 
that  they  were  so  tender  of  the  man-eaters'  morals 
as  to  desire  to  keep  them  eternally  unspotted  from 
the  contact  of  vile  coffee  planters  ;  that,  travelling 
through  the  known  parts  of  the  country,  and  even 
discovering  many  new  districts,  month  by  month, 
they  should  walk  through  the  land  with  their  eyes 
shut  and  not  see  millions  upon  millions  of  acres  of 
splendid  country  lying  waste  and  unclaimed  ;  and 
that  the  possibility  of  guarding  the  natives  from 
enslavement  by  means  of  laws  never  seems  to  have 
occurred  to  these  curiously  short-sighted  law-givers. 

It  was  not  their  fault,  perhaps.  Still,  seeing  what 
Australian  methods  and  government  have  done  for 
the  country  in  less  than  four  years  after  we  had 
successfully  spoiled  it  for  over  twenty,  one  cannot 
help  regretting  that  British  rule  enjoyed  quite  so 
long  a  run. 

CD 

But,  as  the  early  Victorian  novelist  used  to  say, 
after  designedly  giving  away  the  chief  interest  of  his 
plot,  "  I  am  anticipating,"  and  must  return  to  the 
Makambo. 

It  was  a  disappointment  on  rising  at  a  compara- 
tively early  hour  next  morning  to  find  the  great  peaks 
of  the   Owen    Stanley  Range   invisible.     An  endless 


THE   HISTORY   OF   PAPUA  21 

pale  blue  coast,  thin  and  unsubstantial  in  the  heat, 
lay  stretched  out  along  our  port  beam.  There  were 
hills  behind  it,  but  a  thick  mantle  of  cloud  covered 
them  all.  We  could  only  imagine  the  splendid  cone 
of  Mount  Yule,  rising  ten  thousand  feet  straight 
into  heaven,  the  gradual  slopes  and  scarps  of  Mount 
Victoria's  majestic  thirteen  thousand  feet,  the  aston- 
ishing humps  and  domes  of  the  smaller  seven  or 
eiffht  thousand  feet  mountains  nearer  the  coast.  Here 
and  there,  as  the  steamer  plodded  steadily  along  the 
great  equatorial  island,  one  would  catch  just  a 
glimpse  of  a  whitey-blue  summit,  very  far  away  and 
amazingly  high  up,  or  see  the  rise  of  some  long 
range  of  foothills  leading  away  and  away  .  .  . 
whither  ? 

The  nameless  charm  of  Papua — the  fascination 
which  many  have  felt  but  none  can  express — first  lays 
its  compelling  hand  upon  the  traveller  when  he  looks 
at  such  scenes  as  these,  and  knows  for  a  certainty  that 
his  eyes  are  resting  upon  hills  unprofaned  by  the 
white  man's  foot — upon  lands  where  "  no  one  has 
been  "  ;  upon  rivers,  known  and  navigated  indeed  in 
the  lower  reaches,  but  rising  from  mystery,  and  taking 
their  growth  in  the  unseen.  The  plantation  country, 
with  its  busy  hordes  of  labourers,  its  comfortable 
managers'  bungalows,  its  loads  of  coffee  and  fibre  and 
copra  coming  down  to  meet  the  steamers,  takes  on 
actual  romance  viewed  against  this  background  of  the 
ever-fascinating  unknown.  Scarce  a  dainty  arm-chaired 
verandah  but  looks  out  upon   mountain  ranges  that 


22  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

shut  in  unvisited  mystery  ;  scarce  a  trader  or  miner 
but  goes  every  now  and  then,  in  the  course  of  his 
ordinary  work,  to  the  verge  of  the  "Never  Never," 
and  sometimes  even  beyond  ;  hardly  a  creek  supply- 
ing water  to  the  horses  and  baths  to  the  plantation 
house  which  does  not  carry  in  its  heart  secret  on 
secret  of  the  strange  places  whence  it  has  come. 
Much  exploration  has  been  done  of  late,  bit  by  bit, 
after  a  quiet,  unadvertised  fashion,  by  the  Govern- 
ment officials  of  the  outermost  districts,  by  miners 
and  prospectors,  and  by  a  few  of  the  missionaries  of 
the  Sacred  Heart,  who  have  the  true  pioneering  spirit. 
But  so  much  remains  quite  unknown,  that  one  may 
safely  prophesy  it  will  be  very  many  years  yet  before 
Papua  loses  the  greatest  of  its  charms — mystery. 

The  continent,  or  island,  of  New  Guinea  is  nearly 
1500  miles  long,  its  greatest  width  being  430  miles. 
Its  entire  area  is  estimated  at  235,000  square  miles. 
In  spite  of  the  huge  piece  claimed  by  the  Dutch  and 
the  goodly  section  belonging  to  Germany,  England 
has  no  reason  to  complain  of  her  share,  since  it 
amounts  to  90,540  square  miles,  nearly  88,000  of 
which  are  on  the  mainland,  the  rest  being  made  up 
of  islands.  The  British-owned  section  is  in  many 
ways  superior  to  German  New  Guinea.  It  is  long 
and  narrow — 800  miles  from  east  to  west,  and  from 
200  to  50  in  width,  its  coastline  being  proportionately 
very  great — 3664  miles. 

It  is  easy  to  understand,  from  a  glance  at  the  map, 
that  Papua  must  be  much  more  readily  accessible,  and 


THE   HISTORY   OF   PAPUA  23 

less  troublesome  and  expensive  to  open  up,  than  either 
of  the  foreign-owned  sections.  This  impression  is 
carried  out  by  the  actual  facts.  Both  Dutch  and  German 
New  Guinea  are  less  known,  less  developed,  less 
effectively  controlled  than  Papua.  Our  share  is,  in- 
deed, more  valuable  in  many  ways.  To  mention  one 
or  two  only — the  mineral  resources  of  the  country  are 
richer,  the  pearl  fisheries  are  more  valuable,  and  the 
great  extent  of  seaboard  offers  perfect  facilities  for 
cultivating  the  cocoanut,  which,  in  the  form  of 
"  copra  "  or  dried  kernel,  is  one  of  the  most  important 
products  of  Australasia. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  the  name — the  new 
name — of  the  English-owned  section  is  a  little  confus- 
ing. In  our  childish  days  we  were  taught  to  think 
of  the  largest  island  of  the  world  as  "  Papua,  or  New 
Guinea."  It  is  indeed  marked  as  such  on  most  maps. 
But  when  the  part  known  as  British  New  Guinea 
was  taken  over  by  the  Commonwealth  Government 
in  1906  it  became  necessary  to  find  a  new  name,  and 
the  country  was  rcchristened  "The  Territory  of 
Papua" — much  as  though  a  foreign  Power  were  to 
take  possession  of  Ulster  or  Connaught  and  insist  on 
calling  it  "  Ireland."  The  result,  of  course,  has  been 
confusion  outside  of  Australia.  Few  people  at  home 
know  that  "  British  New  Guinea  "  no  longer  exists, 
and  the  term  "  Papua  "  means,  to  the  English  reader, 
either  the  whole  country  or  (if  it  is  qualified  by  the 
addition  of  "New  Guinea")  some  small  obscure 
portion  of  which  no  one  has  ever  heard.     It  certainly 


24  THE    NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

does  not  mean  the  "  British  New  Guinea  "  of  which 
he  has  probably  heard  something  from  time  to  time. 

This  trouble  will  no  doubt  set  itself  right  in  a  few 
years.  There  is  at  least  one  strong  argument  for  the 
name  adopted.  If  "  Australian  New  Guinea  "■ — an 
easy  and  obvious  title — had  been  chosen,  the  colony 
would  still  have  continued  to  suffer,  as  it  has  done  in 
times  past,  for  the  sins  of  the  Guinea  Coast  of  Africa. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  in  the  mind  of  anyone  who 
has  visited  New  Guinea  that  some  such  misalliance 
of  name  has  always  haunted  the  ideas  of  the  general 
public,  and  given  the  island  continent  of  the  south  an 
ill  reputation  that  it  never  honestly  deserved.  New 
Guinea  is  not  a  health  resort  for  invalids — no  tropical 
colony  is — but  it  never  was  "  the  White  Man's 
Grave,"  or  the  "Land  of  the  Lost,"  or  any  other  of 
the  unpleasant  things  it  has  been  miscalled.  Perhaps, 
at  the  price  of  even  a  good  deal  of  inconvenience  and 
confusion,  the  Commonwealth  Government  did  well 
to  cast  overboard  every  relic  of  the  bad  old  days,  and 
make  an  entirely  fresh  beginning. 

We  round  a  green  headland — we  pass  through  the 
jaws  of  an  encircling  coral  reef — and  the  Makamho 
is  at  anchor  in  Port  Moresby  Bay.  This  is  the 
capital  that  lies  before  us.  There  are  only  two  towns 
in  Papua  ;  you  here  behold  the  chief. 

Well  ...  it  is  not  a  collection  of  log  huts  or 
bark  "  humpys,"  but  there  is  no  mistaking  the 
pioneering   stage,   and  Port  Moresby  has  clearly  not 


MORESBY    BAY  25 

emerged  from  it  yet.  The  curious,  peaky,  pale 
green  and  deep  blue  hills  that  surround  the  town  in 
a  phantasmagorical  array,  quite  unlike  any  hills  as  one 
has  known  them  in  other  countries,  are  bare  of  all 
houses  save  three  or  four  Government  offices  and 
bungalows  and  the  residence  of  the  London  Mis- 
sionary Society.  There  are  no  roads  to  be  seen  (in 
reality  there  is  one,  and  several  foot-tracks,  but  they 
are  hidden  behind  the  hills).  The  town  itself,  clam- 
bering up  and  down  one  or  two  of  the  lesser  hills, 
does  not  own  more  than  a  score  or  two  of  houses, 
most  of  them  Government  offices.  All  the  buildings 
are  of  wood  or  iron,  painted  white,  all  the  roots  of 
grey  iron.  The  houses  are  surrounded  with  deep 
verandahs  and  perched  on  piles  eight  or  nine  feet 
high,  so  that  they  look  like  huge  many-legged  beetles 
out  for  a  walk.  This  is  not  because  the  ground  is 
marshy  in  the  town,  but  because  white  ants,  snakes, 
iguanas,  and  other  local  fauna  are  rather  too  fond  of 
making  their  homes  with  the  residents  in  wet  weather 
if  not  discouraged  in  this  manner.  A  new  building 
is  being  put  up  on  a  square  of  cleared  ground  ;  the 
carpenters  have  got  as  far  as  the  laying  of  the  piles, 
and  the  bare  earth  is  dotted  at  regular  intervals  with 
some  dozens  of  black  wooden  posts  capped  with 
shining  zinc.  .  .  .  It  is  extraordinarily  like  a  pin- 
cushion seen  through  a  magnifying  glass. 

There  are  no  paved  or  macadamised  streets  in  the 
town.  Grass  alone  covers  the  space  between  the 
houses — grass  and  bare  red  earth.     There  are  three 


26  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

long  wooden  piers,  but  the  steamer   discharges  pas- 
sengers and   cargoes   from    boats.     We  land  on  the 
central  pier,  and,   walking   up   the   sharp   slope  into 
the  town,  are  assailed  by  a  rich  odour  that  somehow, 
in  the  midst  of  all  the  heat  and  glare,  seems  to  recall 
the   scented,   shaded   coolness  of   drawing-rooms   far 
removed  across  the  seas  of  the  world  and  the  seas  of 
Time.   .    .    .  Sandalwood,  as  I  live  !   and  there  it  is, 
piled  up  by  the  side  of  the  track  in  a  heap  that  looks 
like    somebody's    winter    firing.      Rough    logs,    big 
straggling  roots,  knotty  branches — all  as  sweet  as  only 
sandalwood  is    sweet — the    very    dust  and    splinters 
might  perfume  a  lady's  wardrobe.     We  steal  a  little 
piece  or  two,  and  pocket  it  to  make  a  pleasant  smoke 
against   mosquitoes   later  on.     And    now   comes   the 
question    of    finding    quarters — often    something    of 
a  difficulty.      More   fortunate  than   most,   I  was  in- 
vited to  stay  with  friends,  and  was  thus  enabled  to 
see    the    wonders    of   Papua    under    the    pleasantest 
circumstances. 

How  is  Papua  governed,  and  what  changes  have 
been  made  in  its  administrative  system  since  the 
Commonwealth  took  over  the  country  ? 

In  past  times  British  New  Guinea  was  classified  as 
a  Crown  Colony,  the  government  being  carried  on 
by  an  Administrator,  with  the  help  of  a  small  Legis- 
lative Council.  The  correspondence  of  the  Ad- 
ministrator with  the  Secretary  of  State  had  to  go  by 
a  somewhat  roundabout  route,  first  through  the 
Governor  of  Queensland,  and   then  on  to  England. 


SIR   WILLIAM    MACGREGOR  27 

Five  resident  magistrates,  each  in  charge  of  one  of 
the  five  divisions  of  the  country,  assisted  in  keeping 
order.  Sir  William  Macgregor,  during  his  Adminis- 
tratorship, instituted  a  useful  system  of  Armed  Native 
Constabulary,  of  whom,  in  the  Crown  Colony  days, 
there  were  about  a  hundred  and  fifty.  The  native 
village  constables  also  date  from  this  period. 

At  the  present  time  Papua  is  ruled  by  a  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor appointed  by  the  Commonwealth 
Government.  He  is  assisted  by  an  Executive 
Council  of  four  official  members,  and  a  Legislative 
Council  of  four  official  and  three  non-official.  The 
title  of  "  Administrator "  has  been  preserved,  with 
a  change  of  meaning.  It  is  now  borne  by  the 
Government  officer  next  in  rank  to  the  Lieutenant- 
Governor.  This  official  is  supposed  to  take  charge 
of  the  colony  in  the  absence  or  illness  of  the  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor, and  in  case  of  the  death  of  a 
Governor  he  would  hold  the  position  until  a  new 
appointment  could  be  made.  The  arrangement  is 
in  the  nature  of  an  insurance,  providing  against  the 
possibility  of  the  country  being  left  at  any  time 
without  a  responsible  head.  This,  in  a  new  and 
uncivilised  colony  like  Papua,  far  removed  from  post 
or  telegraph,  is  very  necessary  ;  but  the  somewhat 
sinister  suggestion  which  it  conveys  as  to  the  perils 
of  Papuan  existence  is  a  little  out  of  date,  the  health 
conditions  of  the  country  having  so  greatly  improved 
of  recent  years. 

There  are   now   eight  divisions  in  the  colony  ad- 


28  THE   NEW    NEW    GUINEA 

ministered  by  eight  resident  magistrates,  with  the 
help  of  eleven  assistant  resident  magistrates  and  four 
patrol  officers. 

The  Customs,  Post  Office,  Lands,  Mining,  and 
Agricultural  Departments  have  their  quota  of  officials 
— a  small  one — in  Port  Moresby  and  Samarai.  The 
colony,  on  the  whole,  is  run  at  very  small  expense, 
and  has  a  considerable  balance  of  revenue  over 
expenditure.  Correspondence  now  goes  direct  to  the 
Commonwealth  Government  offices  in  Melbourne. 
Appointments  of  officials  are  recommended  by  the 
Commonwealth,  and  made,  if  approved,  by  the  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor. 

There  has  been  only  one  Australian  Lieutenant- 
Governor  so  far — the  present  occupier  of  the  position, 
His  Excellency  Judge  Murray  (John  Hubert  Plunket 
Murray).  The  officials  next  in  rank,  the  Hon.  Miles 
Staniforth  Smith,  Director  of  Agriculture,  and  the 
Hon.  A.  M.  Campbell,  Government  Secretary,  are 
respectively  Australian  and  Scottish.  The  lesser 
officials  belong  to  various  countries,  but  are  all  of 
English-speaking  nationality,  with  a  preponderance  of 
Australian. 

The  present  Lieutenant-Governor  has  held  the 
post  since  April,  1907,  when  he  was  appointed  tem- 
porarily to  the  charge  of  the  country — the  appoint- 
ment being  made  permanent  in  November,  1908. 

His  Excellency  John  Hubert  Plunket  Murray,  and 
late  Colonel  of  the  New  South  Wales  Irish  Rifles,  is 
a  son  of  the  late  Sir  Terence  Aubrey  Murray,  at  one 


JUDGE    ROBINSON  29 

time  President  of  the  Legislative  Council  of  New 
South  Wales.  He  was  educated  at  Oxford  and  on 
the  Continent,  and  has  had  a  notable  career  at  the 
New  South  Wales  Bar.  He  is  Chief  Judicial  Officer 
for  Papua,  as  well  as  Lieutenant-Governor.  During 
the  late  Boer  war  he  served  with  distinction  in  the 
New  South  Wales  Mounted  Infantry,  and  was 
honoured  by  the  British  Government  with  the  rank 
of  Major.  Papua  is  a  country  that  at  times  makes 
demands  on  the  military  capacity  of  its  rulers,  and 
the  Lieutenant-Governor's  experience  of  war  has  no 
doubt  assisted  largely  in  keeping  peace  among  the 
tribes — a  paradox  with  which  no  student  of  history 
will  find  fault. 

The  history  of  Papua,  up  to  the  last  two  years,  is  a 
tale  of  disaster  and  unsuccess.  During  1907-8,  and 
still  more  during  the  present  year,  a  notable  change 
has  been  taking  place.  Some  such  development  had 
been  prophesied  and  hoped  for  by  a  few  far-seeing 
ones  ;  but  time  seemed  to  bring  it  no  nearer,  and  in 
the  stormy  years  of  1904-6  the  colony  seemed  to  be 
steadily  losing  ground.  It  is  scarcely  possible  to  give 
any  account  of  Papuan  history,  however  brief,  without 
referring  to  the  incidents  of  this  unhappy  period, 
although  little,  naturally,  can  be  said  about  occur- 
rences with  which  living  and  well-known  people  have 
been  intimately  concerned. 

Early  in  1903  the  country  came  temporarily  under 
the  care  of  Judge  Robinson,  Chief  Justice  of  Papua,  a 
member  of  a  well-known  Queensland  family.     Judge 


30  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

Robinson  was  a  man  still  in  the  thirties,  of  a 
sensitive,  humane,  and  conscientious  character — too 
sensitive  and  high  strung,  it  may  be,  for  the  very 
difficult  and  trying  task  that  had  devolved  upon  him. 
Among  other  matters  that  weighed  much  upon  his 
mind,  after  he  had  become  responsible  for  the  peace 
of  the  country,  was  the  bad  effect  that,  among  the 
western  tribes,  had  followed  the  murder  of  the  mis- 
sionaries Chalmers  and  Tompkins — an  outrage  that 
made  a  deep  impression  upon  the  whole  religious 
world.  The  murder  had  taken  place  in  1901,  and  a 
year  later  the  natives  who  had  committed  the  crime — 
Goari-Bari  islanders — still  kept  possession  of  the 
victims'  skeletons,  holding  them  as  trophies  of  war, 
and  defying  the  whites  to  regain  possession  of  them. 
Nor  had  the  actual  murderers  ever  been  caught, 
though  punishment  of  a  general  nature  had  been 
inflicted  on  their  villages. 

Judge  Robinson  decided,  therefore,  to  pay  a  visit 
to  Goari-Bari,  and  see  whether  it  might  not  be 
possible  to  bring  away  the  murdered  missionaries' 
remains.  He  went  in  the  Government  steam  yacht 
Merrie  England,  and  took  a  number  of  armed  native 
constabulary  with  him.  The  natives  of  Goari-Bari, 
being  assured  that  the  mission  was  peaceful,  came  on 
board  from  their  canoes,  a  flotilla  of  which  had 
surrounded  the  ship  on  her  arrival.  Among  the 
visitors  to  the  ship  one  of  the  native  constables  de- 
clared that  he  saw  the  actual  murderers  of  Chalmers 
and  Tompkins.     Judge  Robinson  ordered  the  arrest 


JUDGE    ROBINSON  31 

of  the  men.  Their  capture  was  the  signal  for  a  general 
attack  by  the' natives  in  the  canoes,  who  began  firing 
arrows  into  the  ship.  One  man  aimed  an  arrow  at 
the  Acting-Governor  himself,  and  would  probably 
have  shot  him  had  not  a  constable  put  a  bullet  through 
the  archer  before  the  arrow  could  fly.  At  this  the 
fight  became  general.  It  seems  clear  that  the  armed 
police  and  the  white  men  shot  a  number  of  the  natives 
who  were  firing  at  the  ship,  but  how  many,  and 
under  what  circumstances,  was  never  exactly  or  satis- 
factorily explained.  The  natives  were  soon  beaten  off 
and  retired  to  their  village,  while  the  Merrie  England 
steamed  away. 

The  wildest  reports  of  what  had  happened  at 
Goari-Bari  soon  became  current  throughout  the 
Territory,  and  some  of  them  spread  southward.  The 
Commonwealth  Government  ordered  an  inquiry  into 
the  whole  matter.  There  is  no  reason  to  believe  that 
Judge  Robinson  would  have  suffered  by  this,  but  he 
himself,  isolated  from  his  friends,  involved  in  a  mesh 
of  local  quarrels,  and  feeling  the  whole  trouble  with 
extreme  acuteness,  could  not  take  a  reasonable  view 
of  the  situation.  He  did  not  await  the  result  of  the 
inquiry,  but  was  found  one  morning  lying  at  the  foot 
of  the  flagstaff  in  front  of  Government  House,  with 
a  half-loaded  revolver  in  his  hand,  shot  through  the 
head. 

The  violent  feelings  caused  by  Judge  Robinson's 
death  did  not  tend  to  smooth  down  local  differences, 
which  were  already  active  enough.    After  the  Acting- 


32  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

Governor's  suicide  the  colony  broke  up  into  a  series 
of  mutually  hostile  and  mutually  distrustful  factions. 

A  new  Governor  was  appointed,  but  during  his 
rule  things  went  from  bad  to  worse,  and  the  official 
life  of  the  country  became  a  blaze  of  continual 
quarrels.  The  Commonwealth  of  Australia  sent 
a  special  Commission  up  to  Papua  to  inquire  into  the 
trouble  of  the  colony,  and  for  some  months  the 
members  of  the  Commission  were  very  fully  occupied 
travelling  from  place  to  place  and  taking  the  evidence 
of  officials,  planters,  traders,  anyone  who  had  any- 
thing to  say  about  the  matters  under  dicussion. 

The  Governor  went  home  to  England  on  leave,  and 
did  not  return  when  his  time  was  up.  Meanwhile, 
the  Chief  Justice  of  the  colony,  His  Honour  Judge 
Murray,  was  appointed  Acting-Administrator,  and 
afterwards  confirmed  in  his  appointment  as  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor. 

Papua,  under  the  rule  of  an  Australian-born 
Governor,  appointed  by  the  Commonwealth  Adminis- 
tration, now  began  to  advance  in  a  way  little  calculated 
to  flatter  the  pride  of  the  nation  that  had  industriously 
made  nothing  of  the  country  for  nearly  a  quarter 
of  a  century.  Between  1907  and  1909  it  changed 
from  a  useless  tract  of  savage  country,  where  the 
natives  were  more  than  half  out  of  hand,  the  whites 
almost  at  war,  land  scarcely  obtainable,  property 
insecure,  to  a  habitable,  peaceful,  and  flourishing 
colony.  The  change  has  been  so  rapid  that  hardly 
anyone  outside  of  Australia  even  knows  that  it  has 


PAPUA  33 

taken  place,  and  the  British  public,  assuredly,  does  not 
yet  realise  that  Papua  of  to-day  is  by  no  manner  of 
means  British  New  Guinea  of  yesterday,  either  in 
name  or  in  nature. 

Figures  may  (proverbially)  be  made  to  prove  any- 
thing. But  there  cannot  be  much  doubt  as  to  what 
the  following  extract  from  the  records  of  the  Govern- 
ment proves  : — 

Total  land  purchased  and  leased  in 
the  Territory  of  Papua,  from  the 
annexation  in  1884  up  to  1906   .   .   28,999  ^cres. 
Total  up  to  March,  1909   .  .  319,853      „ 

So  ends  the  tale  of  the  bad  old  days  in  Papua. 
We  return  gladly  to  the  happier  present. 


CHAPTER    II 

The  sea  villages  of  Port  Moresby — Motuan  trading  instinct — A 
visit  to  the  Bird-cage  Houses — The  curse  of  Babel — How  to 
catch  a  murderer — Village  dancers — The  cold  country  of  New 
Guinea — A  start  for  the  Astrolabe — What  is  a  swag  ? — In  jail. 

TT  is  impossible  to  take  Papua  seriously  at  first,  nor 
indeed  is  it  necessary.  You  cannot  understand 
the  country  if  you  set  about  the  task  after  too  grave 
a  fashion.  You  must  remember,  above  all  things,  that 
when  the  steamer  slips  away  round  Paga  Hill,  she 
snaps  the  last  link  connecting  you  with  things 
commonplace,  accustomed,  even  probable.  You  are 
left  in  the  Land  of  the  Impossible,  where  the  thing 
which  is  not  happens  every  day,  and,  in  the  truest 
sense  of  the  phrase,  nothing  arrives  save  the  un- 
expected. 

A  walk  through  the  native  village  which  lies  a 
couple  of  miles  beyond  the  township  is  the  recognised 
way  of  opening  one's  acquaintance  with  Papua.  More 
or  less  under  white  influence  for  thirty  years,  in 
constant  association  with  the  white  community  for  at 
least  fifteen,  the  village  (one  would  naturally  expect) 
should  be  by  this  time  civilised  out  of  all  interest. 
It  is  not,  however.  Apparently  the  people  of  the 
harbour  and  the  bay  swallowed  all  the  civilisation  they 
could  digest  a  good  many  years  ago,  and  there  stopped. 

34 


SEA   VILLAGES  25 

They  know  the  value  of  money  to  a  certain  extent, 
though  most  of  them  prefer  tobacco  to  coin  in 
small  amounts,  and  do  not  seem  to  be  able  to 
understand  that  coppers,  if  collected,  are  worth  the 
same  as  silver.  They  have  a  liking  for  shirts,  singlets, 
dresses,  cotton  kilts,  but  only  wear  them  for  ostenta- 
tion, and  as  a  piece  of  show-off  when  going  into  the 
town.  Otherwise  they  prefer  to  go  clad  in  a  waist- 
cloth  or  a  grass  kilt,  according  to  sex.  They  know  a 
good  deal  of  pigeon-English,  work  for  hire  as  servants, 
labourers,  store  assistants,  go  to  church  or  school  off 
and  on,  and  are  on  the  best  and  most  friendly  terms 
with  the  white  population.  Yet  they  believe  heartily 
in  magic  and  sorcery,  and  in  many  instances  practise 
it  ;  their  marriage  customs  are  still  those  of  the 
primitive  savage,  and  all  the  hard  work  both  in 
village  and  field  is  done  by  the  women. 

So  it  is,  therefore,  that  the  twin  villages  of  Hanua- 
bada  and  Elavara  have  lost  nothing  in  their  interest 
for  the  casual  white  visitor,  although  the  antiquarian 
might  find  much  to  regret,  and  something  to  rejoice 
over,  in  the  decay  of  native  customs  good  and  bad. 

These  sea  villages  of  Papua  are  very  numerous, 
and  when  one  has  visited  many  the  sense  of  wonder 
is  apt  to  wear  off,  though  the  sense  of  pleasure  in 
their  artistic  beauty  remains  as  an  abiding  delight. 
Still,  the  first  view  is  one  that  is  long  remembered. 
The  strange  brown  houses,  with  their  high-pitched 
gables  and  deep  verandahs,  set  up  on  a  forest  of  sea- 
worn  piles,  the  rough  sketch  of  a  ladder  in  front  of 


36  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

each,  fit  indeed  for  the  light  movements  of  bare  feet 
and  slight  naked  bodies,  but  a  very  trap  of  destruction 
for  booted  climbers — the  jolly-looking  crowd  of  mop- 
headed  men  and  women  loafing  on  the  platforms, 
almost  naked,  save  for  the  swaying  ballet-skirts  of 
the  girls  and  the  masses  of  beads  worn  by  men  and 
women  alike — the  cool  lapping  of  the  water  right 
underneath  the  houses,  and  the  green  gleam  that 
flickers  through  the  half-transparent  floors,  when 
we  climb  inside  to  look  round — all  have  a  quaint 
exotic  charm  of  their  own,  and  an  absolute  fitness 
with  their  surroundings,  sure  to  mark  the  memory 
deeply.  The  "street"  of  Hanuabada  is  of  white  sand 
and  gravel  shaded  by  tall  old  palms  that  lean  down- 
ward to  the  sea  after  the  graceful  fashion  of  their 
race,  and  make  matchless  pencillings  of  woven  leaves 
and  waving  plumes  across  the  pathways,  when  the 
sun  is  shining  low  among  the  black  stilts  of  the 
houses,  and  the  girls  are  going  down  to  the  spring 
with  their  round  brown  water-pots  poised  in  the 
crook  of  their  round  brown  arms,  to  get  water  for  the 
evening  meal. 

It  is  a  merry-looking  village,  this  of  Hanuabada. 
There  are  about  two  thousand  people  in  it,  and  the 
number  of  small  fat  naked  children  climbing  perilously 
up  and  down  the  ladders,  or  splashing  under  the 
houses,  seems  to  suggest  that  there  is  no  diminution  of 
numbers  to  be  feared  in  this  branch,  at  least,  of  the 
"  disappearing  brown  races."  These  Papuans  are  of 
Motuan  and  Koitapuan  race,  a  handsome  and  amiable 


L. 


THE   TKMPESTUOUS    rKTTICOAT 


To  face  page  36. 


MOTUAN   TRADING  37 

type.  They  were  never  great  fighters,  and  they  deny 
having  been  cannibals  at  any  time.  Like  all  the  other 
inhabitants  of  sea-built  villages,  they  adopted  that 
form  of  building  to  protect  themselves  as  far  as 
possible  against  the  attacks  of  the  fiercer  mountain 
tribes,  who,  until  the  coming  of  the  white  people, 
used  to  make  constant  raids  upon  the  coast  dwellers. 
The  people  of  these  villages  originally  lived  a  little 
way  from  the  coast,  and  supported  themselves  by 
hunting  and  gardening.  It  is  scarcely  credible,  yet 
true,  that  after  a  century  or  two  of  life  literally  in  the 
sea,  they  have  not  yet  "adapted  themselves  to  their 
environment"  so  far  as  to  make  themselves  into 
decent  fishermen.  Although  the  bay  is  swarming 
with  excellent  fish,  and  the  canoes  go  out  now  and 
then  in  a  perfunctory  way,  very  little  fish  finds  its 
way  under  the  brown  thatch  roofs  unless  a  crowd  of 
Hula  people,  from  a  district  some  fifty  miles  down 
the  coast,  happens  to  be  making  a  visit.  Then  plenty 
is  to  be  had,  for  the  Hula  tribe  belong  to  the  sea 
from  time  immemorial,  and  they  know  how  to  feed 
themselves  in  the  way  most  natural  to  sea-dwellers. 
What  they  do  not  know  is  how  to  make  clay  pots 
such  as  Hanuabada  manufactures,  and  they  are  pleased 
to  go  home  laden  with  these  objects  of  use  and 
beauty,  in  return  for  the  fish  that  they  have  supplied. 
The  Hanuabada  native,  indeed,  is  a  born  trader. 
His  women  cannot  make  the  grass  "  ramies  "  or  skirts 
in  which  they  love  to  array  themselves,  piling  on  one 
over  the  other  until  an  effect  resembling  a  crinoline 


38  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

is  attained.  Kabadi,  a  district  some  forty  miles  away, 
makes  these,  and  trades  them  to  the  Motuan  and 
Koitapuan  belles — always  for  pots.  The  sago  that 
they  love  might  be  grown  in  any  swampy  ground 
near  the  village,  but  they  do  not  grow  it,  preferring 
to  send  out  a  sort  of  Argosy  every  October,  when  the 
north-west  trades  are  near  setting  in,  to  the  western 
district,  returning  months  later  without  the  immense 
cargoes  of  pots  that  weighed  down  their  "lakatois," 
and  bringing  with  them  many  tons  of  Gulf  sago  which 
they  have  bought  with  their  crockery-ware.  They 
also  work  occasionally  in  the  town,  and  spend  the 
money,  in  European  fashion,  on  various  luxuries  that 
appeal  to  them — scent,  print  "ramies,"  mosquito  nets, 
blankets,  beads,  barley-sugar  and  bull's-eyes,  tobacco, 
knives,  tools.  They  are  a  cheerful  and  pleasant 
people,  ready  to  fraternise  with  the  whites,  and  very 
ready  to  take  advantage  of  any  over-indulgence — 
fairly  industrious,  rather  clever,  and  not  distinguished 
by  over-nice  ideas  on  the  subject  of  morality. 

This  afternoon,  as  we  tramp  through  the  village  in 
a  heat  that  seems  to  slap  one's  face  and  crisp  the  very 
hair  upon  one's  head  (nevertheless,  no  one  minds  it, 
since  it  is  the  custom  of  the  whites  to  defy  and  despise 
the  heat  in  this  equatorial  land),  most  of  the  men  are 
away,  for  the  wallaby-hunting  season  is  on,  and  the 
grass  on  the  hills  about  the  bay  is  being  burned  to 
drive  out  the  game,  so  that  it  can  be  hunted  down  with 
dogs  and  speared.  There  are  plenty  of  women,  how- 
ever— old  women,  black,  with  wrinkled  hippopotamus- 


BIRD-CAGE   HOUSES  39 

like  skins  and  bald-shaven  heads,  sitting  at  the  eternal 
toil  of  the  pots,  shaping  the  clay  with  fingers  and  stick, 
and  burning  it  in  the  fire  ;  young  married  women 
coming  home  from  the  manioc  and  banana  gardens, 
laden  with  nets  full  of  roots  and  fruit  ;  unmarried 
girls,  gay  with  bead  necklaces  and  many-coloured 
ramies,  their  huge  woolly  heads  bright  with  cocoanut 
and  sandalwood  oil,  their  tattooed  faces  and  breasts 
further  adorned  with  stripes  of  black  soot  and 
washing-blue,  swaggering  about  in  front  of  the 
houses  with  an  eye  on  possible  beaux.  All  these 
look  at  us  without  interest — they  are  quite  tired 
of  white  visitors  and  their  eternal  cameras,  and  only 
want  us  to  throw  them  a  stick  or  two  of  tobacco  and 
go.  One  elderly  man,  however,  trots  after  us 
persistently,  and  begs  us  to  come  in  and  see  his 
house.  He  makes  a  living  showing  it  to  people 
from  the  steamers,  and  is  not  minded  to  let  a  patron 
escape. 

So  we  climb  up  the  rickety  ladder  and  enter  the 
dim,  cool  brown  room  opening  from  the  verandah. 
There  is  another  room  beyond  that,  and  yet  another 
beyond  that  again — each  running  further  and  further 
out  over  the  cool  green  water  that  we  can  see 
sparkling  between  the  rough  split  logs  of  the  floor. 
The  doorways  furnish  the  only  light,  but  no  other 
is  needed,  when  you  do  not  read  or  write,  and  do 
all  your  net-making  and  other  fine  work,  such  as 
tattooing,  carving  out  combs  and  shell  ornaments, 
etc.,  on  the  verandah  outside.     The  roof  is  of  brown 


40  THE   NEW   NEW  GUINEA 

thatch,  the  floor  and  walls  exhibit  the  native  idea  of 
a  plank — a  slice  cut  from  the  outside  of  a  tree  and 
left  in  its  primitive  semicircular  shape.  There  is  no 
furniture,  save  for  a  stray  box  or  so  of  the  camphor- 
wood  variety,  fitted  with  a  lock  that  rings  when  the 
key  is  put  in.  I  recognise  this  box  as  a  very  old 
friend,  having  found  it  in  every  prosperous  native 
house  that  I  have  visited  in  the  whole  Pacific,  from 
Tahiti  eastwards.  It  seems  to  be  the  one  link  con- 
necting all  the  brown  races  of  the  Southern  Seas. 
Why  Melanesian,  Micronesian,  Polynesian,  and 
Papuan  alike  should  be  consumed  by  the  same  desire 
for  yellow  camphorwood  boxes  with  locks  that  ring, 
is  one  of  those  matters  that  one  prefers  to  leave  to 
professed  ethnologists — confident  in  the  belief  that 
they  do  not  know  any  more  about  it  than  oneself,  and 
are  therefore  sure  to  pronounce  the  problem  un- 
scientific, and  let  it  alone. 

There  are  a  few  mats  in  a  corner — rudely  plaited, 
and  little  or  not  at  all  ornamented.  The  Papuan  is 
not  much  of  a  mat-maker,  skilful  as  he  is  in  work 
demanding  much  higher  ability.  There  is  a  selection 
of  the  locally  made  fire-clay  pots  for  cooking  and 
storing  water.  The  girls'  spare  ramies  are  piled  in  a 
heap  on  the  floor  ;  the  men's  hunting  spears,  made  of 
hard  wood  like  ebony,  and  all  in  one  piece,  are  stacked 
together  underneath  an  odd-looking  object  that  hangs 
on  the  wall — something  like  the  beginning  of  a  piece 
of  basketwork,  or  the  frame  of  a  rude  shield.  This, 
we  hear,  is  a  snare  for  wild  pigs.     When  the  hunter 


BOAR-HUNTING  41 

has  brought  a  wild  boar  to  bay  and  the  brute  is  about 
to  charge,  he  holds  the  snare  at  arm's  length  to  one 
side,  and  the  animal  attacks  it  furiously,  plunging  its 
head  right  into  the  middle,  where  there  is  an  opening 
that  seems  to  invite  the  action.  Once  in  he  cannot 
pull  his  head  out  again,  and  is  so  confused  and 
crippled  by  the  snare  that  the  hunter  can  spear  him 
with  little  danger.  .  .  .  One  would  like  to  know 
how  many  sportsmen  there  are  at  home  who  would 
stand  still  to  the  charge  of  a  furious  tusked  boar,  with 
nothing  but  a  wooden  spear  and  a  wicker  snare  to 
protect  them  ? 

The  Impossibilities  of  Papua  once  more  loom  large 
in  the  path.  These  peaceable  and  timid  Motuans  are 
not  all  peaceable  and  timid,  that  is  quite  evident.  .  .  . 
When  we  are  told  about  another  of  their  diversions — 
going  into  a  marshy  lagoon  haunted  by  crocodiles,  to 
drag  the  monsters  out  by  the  tail  on  to  dry  land,  and 
slaughter  them — we  realise  that  these  people  are  not 
so  easy  to  understand  as  they  appear  at  first  sight. 
The  cap  is  added  to  the  climax  by  somebody  who 
asks  if  all  the  houses  in  the  village  have  hurricane 
lanterns,  like  the  one  we  are  visiting.  No,  the 
owner  says,  they  cannot  all  afford  them,  and  that  is 
a  pity,  for  nothing  keeps  off  the  spirits  on  the  road  to 
Port  Moresby  so  effectively  as  a  good  hurricane  lamp 
bought  from  the  stores.  All  the  men  in  the  village, 
of  course,  are  afraid  to  be  out  in  the  dark,  but  some- 
times they  cannot  avoid  it,  and  then  "  he  plenty  fright 
that  man  1  " 


42  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

To  Elavara  we  proceed  over  a  bridge  several 
hundred  feet  long  built  right  out  in  the  water.  It  is 
quite  a  nice  and  safe  bridge,  according  to  native  ideas, 
but  a  positive  nightmare  to  ours,  being  made  after  the 
inevitable  Papuan  fashion,  of  small  fragile  sticks 
supported  on  high  posts,  without  anything  in  the 
shape  of  a  guard-rail.  If  you  are  barefoot,  practically 
naked,  smallish,  and  light,  nothing  could  be  more 
convenient  ;  you  trip  over  the  sticks  with  the  gait 
of  a  bird  in  a  tree,  and  should  one  or  two  break,  you 
merely  stammer  in  your  walk,  so  to  speak,  and  catch 
up  on  the  next.  But  the  cumbrously  clad  and  shod 
European  is  at  a  disadvantage,  and  very  thankful  to 
get  safely  over  to  the  other  side. 

Elavara  is  more  of  a  fortress  than  Hanuabada.  It 
is  built  in  the  open  sea  and  partly  on  the  verge  of  a 
small  solitary  island,  the  bridge  being  the  only  con- 
nection with  the  mainland.  The  original  reason  for 
existence  has  passed  away,  in  the  case  of  these  towns, 
and  no  new  ones  are  being  built  in  any  known  part  of 
the  Territory.  But  the  natives  still  keep  to  the  old 
ones,  and  repair  them  as  they  fall  to  pieces — partly 
from  habit,  no  doubt,  and  partly  because  of  the  cool- 
ness that  is  only  to  be  found  in  the  sea-built  villages. 

We  of  the  superior  races  are  very  fond  of  laughing 
at  native  conservatism,  but  there  are  glass  panes  in 
our  own  houses  for  all  that.  Why  is  it  that  in  such  a 
hot  climate  it  has  never  occurred  to  any  of  the 
people  who  have  built,  and  are  building,  houses 
in  Port  Moresby  that  a  European  house  can   be  set 


BUILDING   HOUSES  43 

out  on  piles  in  the  sea  just  as  well  as  a  native  one, 
and  that  this  style  would  certainly  be  more  healthy 
than  the  present  plan,  not  to  speak  of  the  difference  in 
temperature?  Mosquitoes  would  be  less  troublesome 
in  such  houses  than  they  are  in  the  midst  of  the  grass 
and  trees,  the  full  benefit  of  every  breeze  would  be 
enjoyed,  and  instead  of  heated  earth  under  the  house, 
collecting  rubbish  and  retaining  all  the  warmth  of  the 
day,  there  would  be  the  clean,  fresh,  cool  water  of  the 
sea,  ebbing  and  flowing  with  the  tide.  Nor  would 
any  risk  from  storms  lessen  the  pleasure  of  such  a 
dwelling,  Port  Moresby  harbour  being  so  safe  and  so 
sheltered  that  no  wind  could  make  the  least  difference 
to  the  people  of  the  sea-houses. 

Europeans  are  not  much  more  easily  moved  out  of 
their  customary  way  than  Papuans,  however,  and  the 
hot  little  box  of  corrugated  iron,  set  on  a  baking 
plain,  still  continues  to  be  the  ideal  of  the  Port 
Moresby  builder. 

So  much  as  we  have  seen  to-day,  every  passing 
tourist  on  the  steamer  sees,  every  traveller  who  comes 
to  the  Unknown  Land  makes  the  first  chapter  of  his 
book.  From  a  literary  point  of  view,  the  native 
villages  about  Port  Moresby  are  almost  as  much 
used  up  as  Mount  Vesuvius  or  the  Palaces  of 
Versailles. 

Yet  they  are  significant  to  one  who  is  interested  in 
the  future  of  Papua.  They  are  among  the  straws 
that  show  what  way  the  winds  are  blowing.  The 
adaptability   of  the   Papuan,    the    conservatism     that 


44  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

underlies  his  adaptability,  giving  it  something  to  stand 
upon,  and  preserving  him  from  the  fate  of  the  fluid- 
minded  Eastern  Pacific  races — the  trading  instinct 
that  he  undoubtedly  possesses,  his  submission  to 
authority,  coupled  with  an  unacknowledged  reserve 
that  allows  him  to  retain  individuality  and  self-respect 
— all  these,  and  more,  are  suggested  to  any  considering 
mind  by  the  native  life  of  Hanuabada  and  Elavara. 
Such  are  the  straws.  Whither  does  the  wind  of 
progress  seem  to  be  sweeping  them  ?  Towards  a 
completer  civilisation,  there  can  be  no  doubt — but 
not  towards  that  well-intentioned  philanthropic  system 
of  nation-making  that  has  somehow  contrived,  with 
the  best  intentions,  to  make  a  gigantic  shambles  of  the 
Pacific  island  world.  The  Papuan  is  not  going  to  die 
out.  He  is  a  native  of  a  different  kidney  to  the  soft 
Tahitian,  the  gentle,  generous  Samoan,  the  easily- 
moulded,  pleasure-loving  Hawaiian.  The  missionaries 
find  him  almost  an  impossible  job,  the  traders  need 
all  their  wits  to  make  a  living  out  of  him.  What 
time  will  make  of  him  we  can  only  guess,  but  judging 
from  the  past  (short  though  that  has  been)  we  may 
fairly  conclude  that  he  will  never  become  what  the 
moribund  races  of  the  island  world  hastened  to  make 
themselves  from  the  first — the  white  man's  "  sedulous 
ape." 

Certain  facts  about  Papua  have  been  so  often  men- 
tioned in  works  of  travel  much  more  serious  in 
intention  than  the  present,  that  they  may  almost  be 
"  taken  as  read  "  at  this  time  of  day.     Everyone  who 


THE   CURSE   OF   BABEL  45 

has  ever  opened  a  book  about  New  Guinea  knows 
that  it  is  a  country  of  innumerable  tribes,  often 
unlike  in  physical  type,  and,  generally  speaking, 
different  languages.  This  is  interesting  to  the 
student  of  philology  or  ethnology,  but  only  strikes 
the  average  wanderer  as  a  decided  nuisance,  when 
the  difficulty  of  getting  interpreters  for  out-of-the- 
way  districts  first  comes  home  to  him.  It  is  a 
constant  trouble  to  the  Government,  and  the  stum- 
bling-blocks it  throws  in  the  way  of  the  courts  of  law 
are  almost  incredible.  Quite  incredible,  unless  one 
has  actually  seen  the  process,  are  the  means  adopted 
to  clear  the  path  of  justice  ;  nevertheless,  I  cannot 
refrain  from  relating  a  sample  or  two. 

The  Resident  Magistrate  of  an  out-of-the-way 
division  hears  a  rumour,  filtered  down  through  half 
a  dozen  native  tribes,  that  some  member  of  a  tribe 
that  no  one  has  ever  seen,  living  in  a  district  totally 
unknown,  has  killed  and  eaten  his  wife.  Moreover, 
he  hears  that  this  man  is  a  murderer  of  notoriety,  and 
a  terror  to  the  country  in  which  he  lives.  The 
R.M.,  who  is  probably  an  Australian  of  five  or  six 
and  twenty,  boasting  just  so  much  military  training 
as  home  life  on  a  cattle  station  and  a  few  months  in 
Port  Moresby  Government  offices  can  give  him, 
"  sees  his  duty,  a  dead  sure  thing,  and  goes  for  it 
there  and  then."     It  is,  to  arrest  that  murderer. 

He  calls  out  a  dozen  of  his  native  constabulary, 
loads  them  with  provisions  and  a  little  "  trade " 
(tobacco,  beads,  knives),  packs  his  marching  kit  in  a 


46  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

small  oilskin  sack,  and  sets  forth.  In  a  couple  of 
days  he  strikes  unknown  country  and  incomprehen- 
sible tongues.  Perhaps  one  of  his  police  can  act  as 
interpreter — he  himself  does  not  know  more  than 
a  couple  of  languages,  and  neither  of  them  is  any 
use  here  ;  but  his  dozen  constabulary  among  them 
may  muster  fifteen  or  sixteen  different  tongues,  and 
they  try  them  all.  .  .  .  A  hit  !  the  natives  speak 
the  language  that  Corporal  Boromai  used  to  know  as 
a  child,  or  something  very  like  it.  All  is  well  for  a 
day  or  so  ;  provisions  are  bought  at  the  village  ;  the 
R.M.  takes  industrious  notes  of  the  country  he  is 
passing  through,  and  the  little  party  slides,  and 
scrapes,  and  scrambles,  and  smashes  on  its  slow  way 
up  and  down  the  interminable  mountains  and  through 
the  dense  dark  jungles  in  the  direction  given  them 
by  the  villagers.  The  next  tribe  they  meet  runs 
away  with  howls  of  terror  and  is  seen  no  more.  The 
next  is  never  even  seen,  leaving  only  a  handful  of 
empty  houses  as  a  sign  of  its  existence.  After  this 
the  party  keep  a  sharp  look-out,  and  succeed  in 
forcibly  capturing  a  small  boy,  who  nearly  dies  with 
terror  of  the  unknown  white  demon  who  has  seized 
him.  They  take  the  boy  back  to  the  nearest  village 
that  speaks  a  language  spoken  by  one  of  the  men,  and 
find  that  the  said  village  can't  speak  the  language  of 
the  boy,  but  they  think  there  is  a  place  not  very  far 
off  where  there  are  people  who  speak  a  language  that 
the  boy  might  conceivably  know.  .  .  .  The  village 
is  found,  but  it  does  not  speak  any  language  known 


Photo  ir.  IV/tiiten. 


DWARF    IROM    THE    IM  F.RIOR 


To  face  page  46. 


SEEKING    FOR   A    MURDERER  47 

to  the  boy,  and  it  adds  the  gratuitous  information 
that  the  boy  is  a  devil,  and  that  only  devils  live  in 
the  mountains  beyond  that  district,  whose  language 
no  decent  person  would  think  of  knowing. 

By  this  time  the  provisions  are  out,  one  of  the 
police  has  got  a  spear  wound  in  his  foot  (acquired 
from  a  "  cache  "  of  spear-heads  concealed  in  a  forest 
track  with  the  view  of  discouraging  callers),  and  the 
R.M.  is  down  with  fever.  He  tells  the  boys  to  put 
him  in  his  hammock  and  take  him  home  ;  he'll 
attend  to  that  matter  of  the  murder  later  on. 

Back  at  the  station  they  are  greeted  with  delight 
and  envy  by  the  police  who  have  been  left  behind,  and 
who  spent  the  whole  night  of  their  departure  crying 
bitterly  because  they  were  not  taken  too.  The  boy, 
who  is  as  wild  as  a  captured  bird,  refuses  obstinately 
to  eat.  He  is  quite  certain  that  the  white  devil 
wants  to  fatten  him  for  his  table,  and  he  does  not 
wish  to  make  a  dainty  dish  for  his  conqueror.  The 
white  devil  does  his  best  to  win  the  little  wild 
creature's  confidence,  and  aided  by  the  friendly  black 
faces  about  him  succeeds  in  doing:  so.  The  child 
consents  to  eat,  accepts  the  wonderful  presents  that 
are  made  him,  and  becomes  quite  at  home.  In  a  few 
weeks  he  has  picked  up  enough  pigeon-English  to 
interpret  roughly  with  his  tribe,  and  then  the  expedi- 
tion starts  again — always  after  that  murderer.  The 
left-behind  police  cry  themselves  nearly  sick  this 
time,  for  they  see  that  the  Taubada  (chief)  is  taking 
plenty   of  cartridges,  and  they  expect  there  will  be 


48  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

what  they  live  in  hope  of  and  are  constantly  denied — 
a  real  row. 

The  same  tramp,  the  same  villages,  once  more  the 
unknown  district  and  the  flying  people,  and,  it  may 
be,  a  stray  arrow  or  spear  flung  from  behind  a  tree  as 
they  pass.  Now  they  reach  the  point  attained  before, 
and  here  comes  in  the  use  of  the  boy.  The  child  is 
dressed  up  in  gay  cottons,  hung  with  beads,  and  given 
a  knife  or  two.  He  is  then  sent  off  alone  into  the 
bush,  and  the  expedition  sits  down  to  wait.  They 
may  wait  an  hour,  they  may  wait  a  couple  of  days. 
The  boy  is  finding  his  people,  and  telling  them  that 
the  white  devils  called  Government  are  not  bad  devils 
— that  they  have  treated  him  splendidly  and  given 
him  marvellous  presents,  and  that  they  want  to  be 
friends  with  the  tribe.  ...  It  ends  in  the  shy  birds 
of  the  forest  coming  to  hand,  timidly,  but  with  grow- 
ing confidence.  They  are  given  presents,  and  told, 
through  the  boy,  that  the  R.M.  wants  guides  and 
interpreters  to  go  on  into  the  country  of  the  mur- 
derer. Both  guides  and  interpreters  are  forthcoming. 
From  village  to  village,  from  hill-range  to  hill-range, 
through  swamp  and  river  and  unbroken  forest,  the 
expedition  takes  its  way,  and,  after  adventures  enough 
to  fill  a  book,  finds  and  surrounds  the  delinquent's 
refuge.  There  may  be  a  fight  before  he  is  taken — 
the  white  lad  and  his  dozen  natives  may  have  to  beat 
off  a  couple  of  hundred  Papuans  armed  with  bows, 
clubs,  and  spears,  or  they  may  have  to  besiege  and 
take  a  whole  large  town,  with  nothing  but  their  pluck 


JUSTICE    IN   PAPUA  49 

and  their  rifles  to  see  them  through.  These  things 
have  been  done  over  and  over  again  in  Papua  without 
attracting  special  notice — it  is  merely  the  magistrate's 
duty.  In  any  case,  the  murderer  is  secured,  hand- 
cuffed, and  taken  away  amidst  yells  of  distress  from 
his  tribe,  and  the  first  part  of  the  play  ends. 

There  may  be  a  second  when  it  is  discovered  that 
the  murderer  speaks  a  language  which  nobody  at  all 
understands — not  the  police,  or  the  villagers  on  the 
way  to  the  coast,  or  the  captured  boy  or  his  tribe.  If 
an  interpreter  cannot  be  found,  what  is  to  be  done  .'' 
The  man  must,  for  the  good  of  the  country,  be 
punished.  There  is  no  reasonable  doubt  that  he  is 
the  murderer  ;  and  he  is  quite  prepared  for  any  treat- 
ment that  may  be  meted  out  to  him,  including  eating. 

Some  colonies  would  hang  him  forthwith.  That  is 
not  the  system  of  Papua,  however.  The  native  must 
have  justice,  even  if  justice  has  to  be  compounded  of 
unusual  and  inconvenient  elements,  including  geo- 
graphical and  philological  research  ;  travel  complicated 
by  the  attentions  of  alligators,  snakes,  and  swamp 
leeches,  and  patient  investigation  into  a  tangle  of 
sorcery  and  pig-stealing  (two  items  almost  always 
present  in  a  Papuan  murder  case).  An  interpreter  is 
procured  by  the  same  lengthy  process  that  resulted  in 
bringing  in  the  murderer,  and  at  the  last  he  is  brought 
to  trial.  He  will  not  be  hanged  unless  he  has  killed 
a  white  man  (a  rare  offence),  or  unless  his  crime  has 
been  one  of  an  aggravated  kind.  Common  sorts  of 
murder  among  the  natives  are  punished  by  imprison- 


50  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

ment  only.  In  any  case,  he  is  heard  in  his  own 
defence,  and  knows  what  is  being  done  and  why. 
And  the  interests  of  justice  and  of  comparative  philo- 
logy have  been  attained. 

That  is  what  the  curse  of  Babel  means  in  Papua. 

Some  days  after  my  arrival  in  Port  Moresby  there 
was  a  native  dance  in  the  village,  and  I  went  down 
with  a  party  of  friends  to  see  it.  It  took  place  at 
night,  lit  up  by  the  moon  and  a  number  of  cocoanut 
torches,  which  latter  were  carried  by  the  dancers. 
There  was  no  danger  of  setting  anyone's  clothes  on 
fire,  because  no  one  wore  any,  except  the  small  con- 
tingent of  girls,  who  were  more  like  penwipers  than 
human  beings  with  the  number  of  grass  skirts  they 
had  put  on.  It  was  a  display  of  male  rather  than 
female  agility  and  grace,  the  women  taking  no  part 
except  a  little  shuffling  up  and  down. 

The  spirit  of  Papua  was  there  that  night — the  in- 
tangible, indescribable  "  spirit  of  place  "  that  gives  to 
travel  three-fourths  of  its  charm.  It  had  haunted  me 
all  day  long,  in  the  monstrous  shapes  of  the  dark 
contorted  hills  through  which  I  had  been  riding  in 
the  afternoon — in  the  huge  antennae  of  the  "lakatoi" 
canoes  that  swept  across  the  bay  like  flights  of  demon 
moths,  through  a  sunset  of  volcano-red  ;  in  the 
thrumming,  booming  note  of  the  native  drums,  beat- 
ing like  a  restless  heart  all  the  evening  in  the  village 
below — in  the  extraordinary  hues  of  phosphoric  blue 
that  lit  the  uppermost  reaches  of  the  sky  when  the 


VILLAGE   DANCERS  51 

dark  was  near  at  hand  (a  colour  I  saw  many  a  time  in 
Papuan  sunset  skies,  but  never  elsewhere).  Papuan, 
and  nothing  else,  was  the  spirit  of  the  dance.  The 
grace  of  the  island  measures  was  not  there,  nor  the 
art  of  European  dancing  ;  there  were  hardly  any 
"  steps,"  merely  a  general  capering,  which  now  and 
then  concentrated  itself  into  a  slow  advancing  shuffle, 
made  with  swaying  bodies  and  sleepy  eyes.  But  the 
intoxicating  throb  of  the  drums  carried  by  the 
dancers,  the  loud,  brassy,  booming  song  which  they 
sang  hour  after  hour,  the  ceaseless  rippling  and 
flickering  of  plumes  and  coloured  leaves  and  grasses 
fastened  on  the  heads  and  limbs  of  the  naked  brown 
bodies,  the  nodding  and  stamping  and  prancing,  the 
savage  measure  of  the  dance — two-four,  with  a  strong 
accent  on  the  second  beat^were  fascinating  enough 
to  keep  us  watching  there  on  the  bare  stretch  of  open 
ground  above  the  village,  in  the  glare  of  the  torches 
and  the  smell  of  smoke  and  sandalwood  and  cocoanut 
oil,  for  more  than  an  hour.  After  which — as  a  native 
dance  may  go  on  for  a  day  and  night,  once  started — 
we  gave  up  and  went  home.  As  we  left,  a  new  series 
of  leaps  and  bounds  began  in  a  squadron  of  dancers 
led  by  a  wild  naked  figure  with  a  woolly  head  of  tre- 
mendous size,  and  a  coiffure  composed  of  six  paradise 
plumes,  two  sets  of  parrot  wings,  and  a  halo  of 
miscellaneous  feathers. 

"  Who  is  that  man-eater  ? "  demanded  a  visitor, 
looking  back  at  the  pantomime  demon  leader  with 
astonishment  and  a  little  awe. 


52  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

"  Garia  !  "  called  one  of  the  whites. 

The  demon  stopped  his  capers  instantly,  and  came 
out  of  the  dance,  painted,  perspiring,  panting.  He 
brought  his  right  hand  up  to  the  salute,  and  stood  at 
attention. 

"  You  wanting  the  boat  to-night,  sir  .? "  he  inquired 
with  deference.  "  I  left  my  watch  in  my  house,  did 
not  know  the  time.      I  go  fetch  the  crew  t" 

It  was  Garia,  the  coxswain  of  the  Governor's 
boat's  crew,  whom  we  had  seen  in  the  afternoon 
uniformed,  grave,  and  responsible,  handing  the  white 
visitors  in  and  out  of  the  boat  with  the  air  of  a  man- 
of-war  officer. 

*'  No,  you're  not  wanted  to-night,"  he  was  told. 
"  We  only  wish  you  to  show  the  ladies  those  feathers 
of  yours,  and  your  drum.      Where  did  you  get  it  ^" 

"  I  made  him  myself,  when  I  was  quite  little  boy," 
answered  the  coxswain,  handing  over  the  drum — an 
hour-glass-shaped  instrument  of  dark  wood,  hollowed 
out  and  carved,  and  covered  at  the  top  with  iguana 
skin,  which  is  thin,  semi-translucent,  and  rather  like 
parchment. 

The  drum  was  admired  and  returned,  and  the  party 
once  more  prepared  to  start. 

"You  want  anything  else,  sir.''"  asked  the  cox- 
swain. 

"  No,  you  can  go." 

With  a  long  howl  like  a  wild  beast  he  leaped  back 
into  the  dance  and  into  savagery  again  at  once,  shak- 
ing and  beating  his  drum,  flinging  his  nodding  plumes 


\j:y-r 


i^^^mm 


GEOGRAPHICAL    FACTS  53 

in  the  air,  and  showing  his  betel-stained  teeth  in  a 
grin  of  fierce  delight,  as  the  capering  squadron  closed 
round  him  and  drew  him  into  the  whirl  once  more. 


Enough  of  the  Port  Moresby  native.  He  is 
interesting  in  his  own  way,  but  one  tires  of  him  soon. 
The  truth  is  that,  in  spite  of  his  superficial  quickness, 
he  has  less  intellect  and  less  character  than  many 
other  of  the  Papuan  races.  And  of  the  country  about 
Port  Moresby  one  soon  sees  enough.  It  is  beautiful 
as  to  colouring — here,  as  everywhere  throughout  the 
Territory,  sea,  sky,  and  earth  are  painted  with  a 
palette  of  gems  and  fire — but  the  soil  is  barren,  and 
there  are  no  plantations.  Now,  it  is  the  new  plan- 
tation life  that  is  the  real  attraction  in  Papua  of  to- 
day ;  and  to  see  that  we  must  go  up  into  the 
mountains. 

Anyone  who  has  ever  read  geography  for  pleasure 
or  of  necessity  must  have  noticed  the  peculiar  dead- 
ness  of  facts  as  embedded — interred  one  might  rather 
say — in  geographical  works.  Nothing  seems  surpris- 
ing ;  little  is  even  interesting.  .  .  .  "This  neigh- 
bourhood exhibits  much  volcanic  activity  at  times, 
resulting  in  serious  destruction  of  property." — 
"Metalliferous  tracts  of  value  abound." — "The  river 
here  precipitates  itself  into  the  valley  of  the  .  .  ., 
down  a  perpendicular  descent  of  several  hundred 
feet."  .  .  .  Burnincy  mountains  that  overflow  vine- 
yards  and  villages — gold-mines    where  one  makes  a 


54  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

fortune  in  a  day — huge  waterfalls  dropping  in  smoke 
and  spume  down  half  a  mountain  side — these  things 
may  be  objects  of  interest  outside  the  covers  of  an 
educational  work,  but  inside  one  merely  yawns  over 
them.  So,  in  reading  about  Papua,  one  sees  without 
emotion  the  statement  that  the  main  range  of  the 
country  ascends  rapidly  from  the  coast,  and  reaches  a 
heiofht  of  thirteen  thousand  feet.     It  does  not  seem  a 

CD 

thing  to  laugh  or  weep  over,  anyhow. 

Yet  here,  as  always,  "things  seen  are  mightier  than 
things  heard."  That  thirteen- thousand  -  foot  range 
becomes  a  matter  of  extreme  personal  interest  when 
once  one  has  realised  what  it  means.  When  one  has 
ridden  twenty  miles  from  scorching  Port  Moresby  up 
to  the  little  bungalow  at  Warirata,  nearly  three  thou- 
sand feet  higher,  and  felt  the  cold  of  nights  that 
demand  warm  rugs  on  the  bed,  and  mornings  when 
one  must  wear  a  serge  coat  till  breakfast-time — when 
one  listens  to  the  complaints  of  the  native  mail- 
carriers  coming  down  from  the  Kokoda  track  twenty 
miles  further  back,  of  the  bitter  chill  and  frost  at  the 
eight-thousand-foot  gap — when  one  looks  out  on  the 
long  rises  of  Mount  Victoria,  lifting  pale  violet  curve 
after  pale  violet  curve  up  to  the  dim  faint  blues  of  a 
far-off  summit  near  as  high  as  the  Jungfrau,  and  sees 
climate  after  climate — torrid,  tropic,  temperate,  cold, 
from  Calcutta  to  Shetland — spread  out  before  one's 
very  eyes — then  one  realises  that  the  bald  geographical 
fact  one  noted  with  so  little  emotion  is  really  "  some- 
thing to  make  a  song  about,"  after  all. 


COOL   CLIMATES  55 

Where  else,  in  all  the  British  colonies,  is  there  a 
country  that  offers  almost  every  variety  of  tempera- 
ture within  a  space  of  some  fifty  or  sixty  miles  ?  We 
have  been  accustomed  to  speak  and  think  of  New 
Guinea  as  a  place  where  the  climate  is  terrible  and 
the  heat  exhausting,  deadly,  inescapable.  The  de- 
scription is  scarcely  correct  from  any  point  of  view — 
Papua  is  not  so  hot  as  either  India  or  Ceylon,  and 
certainly  not  less  healthy  on  the  whole — and  it  is 
most  incorrect  when  one  pauses  to  remember  that  a 
great  part  of  the  country  is  colder  than  England. 
True,  that  part  is  inaccessible  at  present.  But  it  will 
not  always  remain  so.  India  had  not  always  her  cool 
hill  stations,  reached  by  marvellously  graded  roads, 
for  the  refreshment  of  tired  officials  and  their  families. 
The  Cordilleras  of  South  America  must  have  been 
impassable,  except  to  the  Indians,  for  many  a  long 
year.  And  in  Papua  the  distances  to  the  hill  country 
are  in  reality  so  small  that,  once  the  difficulties  of 
the  ground  are  overcome,  the  cool  climates  will 
be  accessible  to  everyone  without  trouble  or  ex- 
pense. 

Back  from  the  future  to  the  present  we  come  with 
a  run,  for  it  is  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and 
three  saddle-horses  are  standing  in  the  shade  outside 
the  house,  with  three  pack-horses  and  several  "  boys  " 
visible  further  away.  We  are  off  into  the  Astrolabe 
Range,  three  of  us,  to  have  a  look  round  and  a  good 
time  ;  and  it  is  not  the  day  after  to-morrow,  but 
to-day,  and  there  are  no  real  roads,  no  bridges,  no 


56  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

carriages,  no  hotels  on  the  way — nothing,  in  fact,  but 
ourselves  and  our  horses  to  get  us  through. 

We  are  bound  for  the  Sogeri  country,  some  thirty- 
six  miles  away,  and  we  intend  to  make  a  three  days' 
journey  of  it,  so  as  to  add  on  some  small  detours  and 
see  everything  thoroughly. 

The  day  is  hot  already,  and  promises  to  be  appal- 
lingly so  later  on,  but  nobody  troubles  about  that.    It 
does  one's  heart  good  to  see  the  sensible,  plucky  way 
in   which   the   resident   of  Papua   accepts   every   dis- 
advantage of  the  country,  climatic  and  other,  and  in 
so  doing  takes  the  edge  off  most  of  them.     In  any 
other  country  only  nine  degrees  south  of  the  equator 
it   would   be   thought  a  hazardous  proceeding  for  a 
couple  of  ladies  and  their  escort  to  start   out   on  a 
twelve  miles'  ride  in  the  middle  of  the  day  over  an 
unsheltered  road  in  the  worst  of  the  hot  season.     But 
the  white  settlers  of  Papua  simply  laugh  in  the  face  of 
the  weather  at  all  times,  nor  do  they  appear  to  suffer 
on  that  account.     No  one  in  this  country  arises  at 
dawn  to  take  an  early  cup  of  tea  and  a  ride  in  the 
morning  twilight,  preparatory  to  a  day  spent  mostly 
behind  close  blinds  ;    no  one   fills  up  the  hot  hours 
with  a  siesta  and  creeps  cautiously  out  at  sundown. 
On  the  contrary,  everyone  is  busy  all   day  long   at 
ordinary  employments,   indoor   and  out  ;    meals  are 
held  at  English  hours  ;  houses  are  not  built  with  any 
special    provision    for    heat,    and    nobody    thinks    of 
abandoning  a  day's  ride  or  walk  because  the  thermo- 
meter happens  to  be  standing  at  ninety  in  the  shade. 


A   TRAVELLER'S    SWAG  57 

In  justice  to  Papua,  it  must  be  added  that  ninety  is  a 
figure  not  often  reached. 

We  travel,  in  this  country,  as  people  travelled  all 
the  world  over  before  roads  and  railways  were  made — 
as  they  travelled  in  England  during  the  Middle  Ages. 
Ride  when  you  can,  and  walk  when  you  must,  is  the 
rule.  There  is  always,  however,  a  bridle-track  to 
a  plantation,  and  the  arrival  of  guests  is  heralded  by 
the  jangling  of  pack-horse  bells  from  afar.  As  we  were 
bound  for  plantation  country,  we  had  the  luxury 
of  horses — how  much  a  luxury  it  is,  experiences 
in  uncleaned  districts  painfully  impressed  upon  me 
later  on. 

Does  the  English  reader  know  what  a  "  swag"  is  ? 
It  is  not  a  collection  of  burglariously  acquired  silver 
in  a  Gladstone  bag,  as  popular  literature  might  lead 
one  to  suppose.  In  Papua,  a  swag  is  a  sack  of  painted 
sail-canvas,  fitted  with  slings  at  the  back  and  fastened 
by  draw-strings  of  strong  cord.  It  is  the  traveller's 
one  indispensable  possession,  and  takes  the  place  of 
all  the  complicated  apparatus  of  trunks,  portmanteaux, 
dressing-cases,  and  hat-boxes,  which  he  is  obliged  to 
leave  behind  in  port.  What  you  cannot  put  into  a 
swag,  or  into  two  or  three  swags,  you  cannot  have  up 
country,  for  cabin-trunks  and  dress-baskets  are  not 
convenient  to  sling  on  the  backs  of  horses  or  native 
carriers.  There  is  a  certain  amount  of  art  in  packing 
for  one  of  these  journeys.  Into  one  swag  go  your 
blankets  (you  may  think  you  cannot  want  them,  but 
you  will),  your  mosquito  net,  your  woollen  suit  or 


58  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

dress  for  wet  evenings  in  high  altitudes.  Into 
another  go  your  clothes,  rolled  into  many  tight 
little  bundles.  Another  is  filled  with  tins  of  meat, 
parcels  of  biscuit,  and  rice,  tea,  sugar,  and  tinned 
milk.  These  are  all  fastened  on  the  pack-horses,  two 
swags  apiece,  and  a  couple  of  billy-cans  are  added — 
no  one  can  possibly  travel  without  a  billy-can  in  any 
part  of  Australasia.  If  the  English  reader  wants  to 
know  what  a  billy-can  is,  I  can  assure  him  that  there 
is  nothing  mysterious  about  it.  It  is  simply  a  plain 
tin  can  with  a  lid,  such  as  is  used  in  England  for 
carrying  milk.  Simple  though  it  is,  the  British 
traveller  will  bring  derision  upon  himself  if  he  does 
not  know  one  when  he  sees  it,  and  especially  if  he 
makes  any  mistakes  about  its  inseparable  companion, 
the  pannikin.  Let  him  not  suppose  rashly,  as  I  did, 
that  a  pannikin  is  a  small  frying-pan  ;  and  let  him 
carefully  refrain,  when  he  does  find  out  what  it  is, 
from  calling  it  a  mug,  lest  the  epithet  should  be 
insultingly  transferred  to  himself. 

Strictly  by  the  way — Micawber  was  right  for  once, 
when  he  fitted  out  his  young  family  for  their 
Australian  travels  by  tying  tin  drinking-vessels  round 
their  waists.  It  is  the  correct  practice  to  ride  thus 
ornamented  in  Papua.  A  sheath-knife  is  also  in- 
valuable— not  for  any  purpose  of  self-defence,  but 
for  a  score  of  miscellaneous  jobs,  such  as  tin-opening, 
cutting  bread,  lifting  a  hot  billy-can  off  the  fire, 
splitting  nuts,  peeling  fruit,  etc.  etc.  etc.  Thus 
accoutred,   with    a   wide    cowboy    hat  of   thick    felt, 


ON   THE   ASTROLABES  59 

nailed  boots,  putties,  and  a  short  skirt,  the  eques- 
trienne of  Papua  is  suitably  outfitted,  though  she 
would  certainly  not  pass  muster  in  Rotten  Row. 

The  first  few  miles  of  the  ride  were  easy,  if  rather 
warm.  The  road  was  an  actual  carriage  road,  and 
made  our  bush  equipments  look  rather  silly,  though 
there  was  no  one  to  see  except  a  native  or  two, 
plodding  along  under  loads  of  manioc  or  banana. 
Open  grassy  plains,  sprinkled  with  the  pale  grey- 
green  of  the  eucalyptus  tree,  surrounded  us  for  miles, 
with  a  few  low  hills  in  the  distance.  This  went  on 
until  we  reached  an  ascent,  turned  a  corner,  and  faced 
a  sudden  down-slope,  when  the  splendour  of  the  hill- 
country  suddenly  broke  upon  us. 

I  am  afraid  it  was  not  the  beauty  of  the  scene — 
though  that  was  marvellous — that  chiefly  impressed 
me  as  I  reined  up  on  the  top  of  the  slope,  above 
a  sea  of  weltering  peaks  and  ridges  and  clambering 
crests,  all  veiled  and  softened  in  velvety  green  forest. 
I  only  said  to  myself,  in  a  kind  of  stony  despair, 
"  Good  heavens,  have  I  got  to  get  through  that  ? " 
and  wondered  how,  short  of  an  aeroplane,  it  was 
to  be  done. 

Another  sentence  out  of  the  geographies  came  back 
and  hit  me  in  the  face — "  The  vegetation  of  New 
Guinea  is  notably  luxuriant." 

Luxuriant .''  Well,  if  luxuriance  means  an  inunda- 
tion of  dense,  tall,  dark  forest,  knitted  inextricably 
together  with  creepers,  canes,  and  lianas,  overflowing 
every   level,   filling   every  valley,    rushing    up    every 


6o  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

mountain  and  down  it  again,  submerging  the  whole 
land  under  a  flood  of  triumphant  and  impenetrable 
greenery  fifty  to  a  hundred  feet  deep — then  the  "  vege- 
tation "  of  Papua  fairly  deserves  the  title.  I  could 
not  see  the  smallest  scratch  of  a  track  up  to  the  verge 
of  the  horizon,  except  the  road  on  which  we  were 
travelling,  and  it  obviously  came  to  an  end  before 
long.  How  travel  was  to  be  managed  through  such 
a  country  taxed  one's  imagination  to  guess.  I  knew, 
however,  that  the  problem  would  be  sure  to  work 
itself  out  somehow  or  other,  and  abandoned  it  for  the 
present. 

And  here  I  will  add — what  did  not  come  to  my 
knowledge  until  some  time  later — that  this  luxuriance 
of  growth  advertises  the  value  of  the  land  to  the 
experienced  eye.  1  can  imagine  the  dismay  with 
which  it  must  strike  the  settler  from  home  countries, 
who  has  taken  up  land  from  a  map  in  Port  Moresby, 
and  views  for  the  first  time  the  impenetrable  tangle 
of  primaeval  forest  under  which  his  estate  lies  con- 
cealed. But  the  knowing:  hand  looks  at  the  unbroken 
masses  of  velvety  green  with  satisfaction.  Land 
that  can  raise  that  can  raise  anything  ;  and  every 
week  will  see  a  bigger  handful  of  clearing  plucked 
out  of  the  smooth  surface  of  tree  tops. 

People  accustomed  to  the  leisurely  forestry  of 
Europe  have  no  idea  how  little  "  clearing  "  means  to 
an  Australian  or  New  Zealander.  It  takes  a  month  to 
cut  down  a  small  copse  in  England,  with  a  dozen 
labourers   hacking  patiently   away   at  tree  after  tree. 


NEW  GUINEA   VEGETATION  6i 

digging  out  stumps,  cutting  off  branches,  tidying 
things  up  as  they  go.  ...  In  Papua,  an  Australian 
"cocky"  (as  the  outback  farmer  who  shoots  cockatoos 
for  the  pot  is  rudely  called)  would  set  to  work  with 
fifty  native  "  boys  "  at  seven  shillings  a  month,  and 
have  twenty  acres  open  to  sun  and  wind  in  the  same 
time.  No  landscape  gardening  there — the  big  trees 
are  hacked  down  and  left  where  they  fall  until  it  is 
convenient  to  set  fire  to  them  ;  the  stumps  and  roots 
rot  away  in  a  little  time,  and  add  value  to  the  soil.  It 
seems  untidy  and  desolate  and  ugly  ;  but  the  stretch 
of  bare  brown  earth  littered  with  splintering  logs  and 
black  stumps  is  beauty  itself  to  the  planter's  eye,  and 
in  a  very  few  months,  when  the  coffee,  or  the  rubber, 
or  the  cocoanut  palms  begin  to  spring  up,  it  will  be 
as  picturesque  as  any  English  park. 

The  richness  of  soil  that  I  have  mentioned  is  one 
of  the  many  wonders  that  are  commonplace,  even 
matter  of  course,  to  the  dweller  in  the  tropics,  yet 
not  in  any  degree  realised  or  understood  by  Euro- 
peans. The  rainfall  in  Papua  is  enormous,  amounting 
to  as  much  as  i  80  inches  per  year  in  some  places.  The 
heat  is  great  at  times,  and  the  constant  decay  of  vege- 
tation in  the  warmth  and  damp  makes  the  whole 
country  one  vast  forcing-bed.  In  other  words,  the 
conditions  that  we  produce  with  care  and  expense 
under  five  or  six  feet  of  glass,  are  the  natural  con- 
ditions of  the  continent  of  New  Guinea. 

The  plants  that  grow  in  such  a  soil  are  valuable  in 
proportion.      Where    the    products  of  poorer    lands 


62  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

bring  their  fives  and  tens  of  pounds  per  ton,  those  of 
the  tropics  bring  twenties,  fifties,  and  hundreds. 
Rubber  is  worth  over  five  hundred  pounds  a  ton.  Hemp 
fibres  are  worth  thirty  or  more.  Coffee  brings  sixty 
upwards.  There  is  a  gold  mine  in  the  earth  of  these 
rich  countries,  and  the  planter  is  the  prospector  and 
miner. 

I  had  known  this  in  a  vague  and  general  way,  but 
the  sight  of  the  tropic  forest  was  the  first  thing  that 
really  brought  it  home  to  me.  And  I  wondered,  as 
we  turned  our  horses  down  the  slope  and  got  on  our 
way  again,  how  it  was  that  the  millions  at  home  knew 
so  little,  and  cared  so  much  less,  about  these  golden 
lands  lying  unawaked  and  untouched,  like  the  Sleeping 
Beauty  of  the  fairy  tale,  in  the  far-away  corners  of 
England's  wonderful  empire. 


That  night  we  all  slept  in  jail. 

We  had  not  committed  any  crimes — any  that  were 
found  out,  at  all  events.  Our  stay  in  prison  was  not, 
therefore,  enforced.  We  only  put  up  at  the  jail 
because  there  was  nowhere  else  to  sleep,  unless  we 
had  camped  on  the  track.  The  hostelry  in  question 
lay  at  the  end  of  our  first  day's  ride  (only  eleven 
miles),  on  the  banks  of  the  Laloki  River,  and  in  the 
midst  of  country  nearly  all  uncleared.  Some  acres 
of  land  lying  about  the  jail  had  been  cleared  for 
vegetable  gardens  and  for  a  Government  nursery  ; 
there  was  a  native  overseer  in  charge  of  the  place,  and 


IN   JAIL  63 

a  few  Papuan  prisoners  wandering  in  a  lost  sort  of 
manner  about  the  track  and  the  banana  fields  when 
we  arrived.  I  imagine  they  were  looking  for  us  ; 
we  had  wasted  time  on  the  way,  and  it  was  dark 
when  we  arrived. 

The  jail  buildings,  three  or  four  in  number, 
irresistibly  suggested  fowl-farming  on  a  large  scale, 
or  summer-houses  of  an  eccentric  kind,  or  large 
clothes-baskets  left  out  and  forgotten  by  a  party  of 
giant  washerwomen.  What  they  did  not  suggest 
was  restraint  or  imprisonment  of  any  sort.  And, 
indeed,  I  found  out  later  that  there  is  not  a  jail  in 
Papua  out  of  which  any  prisoner  could  not  break 
with  a  little  determination  and  a  one-bladed  pocket- 
knife. 

The  prisoners,  cheerful-looking  brown  men  in 
broad-arrowed  tunics,  live  and  sleep  in  these  peculiar 
bird-cage  houses,  and  spend  their  days  doing  a  little 
gardening,  planting,  and  clearing.  They  were  de- 
lighted to  see  us,  and  most  eager  to  do  anything  they 
could  for  our  assistance.  The  head  jailer,  a  woolly- 
haired  native  who  spoke  a  good  deal  of  English, 
received  us  with  the  air  of  a  host  doing  the  honours 
of  his  mansion,  and  all  the  jolly  brown  prisoners, 
that  day  and  the  next,  were  so  amiable  and  so  kind, 
chasing  fowls  for  our  dinner,  picking  fruit,  catching 
our  horses,  that  we  really  felt  they  regarded  us  as 
their  personal  guests.     Which  no  doubt  they  did. 

"  What  are  these  people  imprisoned  tor  ? "  I 
asked,  with  some  perplexity.     I  am  sure  they  could 


64  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

not  be  criminals  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the 
word. 

Well,  they  were  not.  Most  of  them  had  mur- 
dered somebody,  and  concealed  the  crime  by  eating 
the  victim  ;  hardly  a  commonplace  peccadillo.  A 
great  many  were  sorcerers,  sorcery  being  an  offence 
fully  recognised  by  the  Government  and  classed  as 
criminal,  for  excellent  reasons.  Some  of  them  were 
in  prison  for  libel,  or  "  spreading  false  reports,"  which 
would  seem  to  point  to  rapid  development  of  the 
Papuan  mind  along  the  lines  already  laid  down  by 
the  Caucasian.  The  presence  of  a  single  forger — so 
far  unique  in  Papuan  criminal  history — marked  the 
high-water  level  reached  in  the  struggle  of  the  black 
man's  mind  after  the  white.  This  New  Guinea  Jim 
the  Penman  had  been  sent  with  signed  orders  to 
fetch  goods  from  a  store  many  times.  One  day  it 
occurred  to  him  (since  he  could  write)  to  pencil  his 
master's  name  on  a  piece  of  paper  and  get  various 
desirable  things  for  himself.  The  plan  was  good  so 
far  as  it  went,  but  the  brilliant  mind  that  had  thought 
out  for  itself  this  new  way  of  circumventing  the 
universal  curse  of  labour  stopped  short  at  the  idea 
of  concealment.  Consequently  arrest,  trial,  and  a 
term  in  the  Laloki  bird-cage. 

Nothing  is  singular  in  Papua,  simply  because 
everything  is.  It  would  have  been  singular  in  any 
other  country  for  two  white  women  and  one  white 
man  to  go  peaceably  to  sleep  in  a  couple  of  wooden- 
barred  cages,  eleven  miles  from  anywhere,  in  the  midst 


A   NIGHT   IN   JAIL  65 

of  some  dozens  of  savage  murderers  confined  only 
by  wickerwork  walls,  without  any  apprehension  as  to 
unpleasant  results.  It  was  not  singular  here,  be- 
cause we  all  knew  quite  well  that  the  prisoners  had 
no  intention  in  the  world  of  giving  anybody  any 
trouble.  They  had  certainly  killed  and  eaten  a  wife 
or  so,  or  an  inconvenient  aunt  or  grandfather,  for 
good  reasons  of  their  own.  The  white  rulers, 
for  reasons  of  their  own,  had  chosen  to  object,  and 
the  gentleman  who  had  smashed  in  the  head  of 
another  gentleman  fully  understood  that  he  had  to 
pay  for  it,  and  that  if  he  expressed  his  feelings  after 
that  fashion  again  he  might  even  be  hanged.  He  did 
not  bear  malice  ;  like  the  man  in  Kipling's  poem,  he 
only  said  to  himself  that  he  had  "  taken  his  fun 
where  he  found  it,  and  now  he  must  pay  for  his  fun  " 
— it  was  quite  simple.  As  to  annoying  this  ex- 
tremely interesting  and  exciting  party  of  visitors  who 
had  come  to  enlighten  the  dullnesses  of  his  garden- 
ing, why,  he  would  have  given  them  anything  he  had, 
even  to  the  half  of  his  supper  ! 

My  first  night  in  jail  (the  phrase  somehow  reminded 
me  of  the  title  of  a  tract)  proved  peaceful  enough,  in 
spite  of  the  loud  whirring  and  rattling  of  the  swarms 
of  crickets  in  the  trees  and  the  croaking  of  giant  regi- 
ments of  frogs  in  the  river.  My  cell  was  part  of  the 
head  jailer's  house.  It  was  built  of  slabs  or  slips  of 
wood  which  were  very  far  from  meeting  ;  the  floor 
was  of  the  same  material,  and  allowed  one  to  look 
right  through  down  to  the  ground  several  feet  below 

F 


66  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

and  see  the  rats  and  fowls  running  about  underneath. 
The  furniture  consisted  of  a  single  sloping  shelf.  My 
hammock  and  net  were  slung  from  the  supporting 
posts  of  the  roof,  isolating  me  from  the  possible  atten- 
tions of  centipedes  and  scorpions  in  a  way  that  added 
a  good  deal  to  my  peace  of  mind.  As  for  snakes  and 
giant  lizards,  there  were  plenty  of  them  in  the  bush 
close  at  hand,  and  plenty  of  alligators  in  the  river  not 
twenty  yards  away,  but  I  had  learned  by  this  time 
that  they  were  not  to  be  feared,  being  quite  as  much 
afraid  of  the  traveller  as  the  traveller  could  be  of 
them. 

We  spent  the  whole  of  the  next  day  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  jail,  as  no  one  was  pressed  for  time, 
and  I  wanted  to  see  the  Government  nursery,  one  of 
several  organised  by  the  Director  of  Agriculture,  the 
Hon.  Miles  Staniforth  Smith. 

It  was  about  half  an  hour's  walk  from  the  jail 
grounds.  The  way  led  first  of  all  through  the  garden, 
where  yams,  manioc,  and  other  vegetables  are  raised 
for  the  prisoners'  food.  A  garden  in  Papua,  it  must 
be  explained,  never  means  an  ornamental  flower- 
ground  ;  it  is  always  a  strictly  practical  place,  devoted 
to  small  useful  crops.  There  were  a  few  acres  of 
bananas  here  spreading  out  their  great  green  flags  and 
enormous  crimson  flowers  above  the  steep  bank  of 
the  sliding,  muddy  river.  We  stopped  in  the  shade 
long  enough  to  take  a  good  look  at  the  Laloki,  a 
bigger  river  than  any  in  England,  though  it  is  only 
one  of  the  minor  streams  of  Papua.    Alligators  abound 


SWIMMING   THE   LALOKI  67 

in  its  yellow  depths,  and  a  native  who  swims  the 
stream  does  so  at  the  risk  of  his  life. 

Nevertheless  a  number  of  them  did  swim  the 
Laloki  in  flood,  and  at  a  very  dangerous  point,  not 
long  ago.  The  Governor  of  the  country  was  making 
a  tour  of  inspection,  and  wanted  to  get  to  the  other 
side  of  the  river.  No  boat  or  canoe  was  available, 
and  His  Excellency  expressed  his  intention  of  swim- 
ming. The  small  official  staff  of  course  accompanied 
their  chief,  as  they  accompany  him  into  a  hostile 
cannibal  village  or  a  swamp  full  of  snakes,  leeches, 
and  scrub  ticks,  or  any  other  warm  corner  where 
Governmental  duty  may  demand  their  presence.  The 
natives,  seeing  that  the  white  men  intended  to  take 
the  risk,  plunged  in  to  the  number  of  a  dozen  or  two 
along  with  them,  simply  to  make  the  swim  a  little  less 
dangerous  by  force  of  numbers.  All  got  across  with- 
out accident. 

One  wonders  at  times  how  the  gilded  and  ribboned 
A.D.C.'s  and  secretaries  of  the  Government  Houses 
in  older  colonies  would  enjoy  the  amazing  duties  that 
fall  to  the  share  of  their  confreres  in  Papua  ! 

Beyond  the  jail  gardens,  beyond  the  banana  groves 
on  the  river  bank,  past  the  clearings  in  the  forest 
where  enormous  trunks  of  valuable  timber  lay  wast- 
ing and  rotting  on  the  ground,  by  a  cool  pathway 
through  the  bush  and  along  a  rough  fence,  we  came 
upon  the  Government  nursery. 

Judging  by  the  title,  it  ought  to  have  been  some- 
thing   like    a    botanical    garden   at   home,   with    tidy 


68  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

gravelled  walks  and  beds  full  of  labelled  specimens, 
and  big  official  buildings,  and  a  neat  house  for  a 
curator.  It  was  a  newly-cleared  space  of  ground 
without  any  walks  at  all,  with  a  number  of  beds,  a 
few  brushwood-roofed  sheds  for  young  plants,  and  a 
native  hut  for  the  man  in  charge.  There  are  no 
"  frills  "  of  any  kind  about  Papuan  administration. 

Nevertheless,  the  rough  place,  with  three  more 
like  itself  in  different  parts  of  the  Territory,  has 
proved  itself  useful  and  practical.  It  is  from  these 
nurseries  that  the  planters  get  their  seeds  and  cut- 
tings— their  cocoanuts  of  good  kinds  for  setting  out, 
their  rubber  seeds  or  stumps,  their  coffee  plants,  their 
hemp  slips,  and  almost  anything  they  may  want  to 
experiment  with  in  the  way  of  spices,  drugs,  etc. 
They  can  also  get  instructions  that  will  enable  them 
to  start  their  plantations  in  the  best  way — how  to 
line  and  trench  and  plant  out,  how  to  make  nurseries, 
how  to  weed  and  prune — in  general,  how  to  make 
their  estates  pay.  The  old  idea  that  a  man  must 
have  served  an  apprenticeship  of  years  before  attempt- 
ing to  grow  tropical  products  on  his  own  account  has 
quite  died  out  in  these  new  go-ahead  colonies.  There 
is  no  jealously-guarded  mystery  about  the  raising  of 
coffee,  hemp,  rubber,  or  any  other  paying  plant.  If  a 
man  knows  something  from  past  experience,  all  the 
better.  If  not,  however,  he  can  see  all  the  standard 
books  on  his  subject  in  Port  Moresby,  can  get  his 
plants  in  the  country,  and  learn  enough  theoretically 
to  keep  him  from  wasting  his  money.     This  is  what 


SUCCESSFUL   PLANTERS  69 

more  than  one  really  successful  planter  has  already 
done.  I  am  compelled  to  add,  however,  that  the 
successful  planter  rather  often  ranges  himself  on  the 
side  of  those  who  declare  that  "  a  man  must  have  prac- 
tical experience,"  once  his  own  experience  is  gained, 
and  is  very  ready  to  laugh  at  the  presumption  of  the 
"  new  chum  "  who  wants  to  defy  tradition  by  going 
into  the  water  before  he  knows  how  to  swim. 


CHAPTER   III 

Along  the  Laloki — Wonderful  Rona — The  country  of  copper — A 
roadside  camp — A  plantation  bungalow — Where  are  the  English  ? 
— The  humours  of  manslaughter — Up-and-down  country^The 
daily  lucky-bag — "  Heaven  sends  walnuts  .  .  ." — Unknown 
fauna  of  New  Guinea — On  the  long  trail  again, 

"^TEXT  morning  our  cavalcade  set  off  again — 
three  riders,  six  horses,  and  several  "  boys " 
afoot.  Several  agreeably-mannered  assassins  saw  us 
to  the  beginning  of  the  track,  and  begged  us,  so  far 
as  we  could  gather,  to  come  back  again  soon. 

There  was  a  "  good  road  "  all  the  way,  it  appeared, 
in  spite  of  the  unbroken  look  of  the  country.  You 
cannot  always  see  your  road  about  the  Astrolabe 
until  you  reach  it — and  not  invariably  then,  truth 
compels  me  to  add.  You  may,  if  you  are  not  a  good 
"  bushman,"  mistake  the  highway  for  a  pig-track,  or 
a  casual  landslip,  or  the  bed  of  a  dried-up  stream  ; 
or  you  may,  on  the  other  hand,  mistake  any  one  of 
these  for  the  road.  The  moral  is,  that  you  must 
have  a  guide.  It  is  not  a  good  thing  to  get  hope- 
lessly off  the  track  anywhere  in  New  Guinea.  One 
is  not  likely  to  die  of  thirst  ;  but  hunger,  in  these 
unpeopled  solitudes,  would  rapidly  put  an  end  to  any 
white  man  who  strayed  away  from  his  party  and  did 
not  succeed  in  finding  it  again.     True,  there  is  game, 

70 


ALONG   THE   LALOKI  71 

but  explorers  know  the  danger  of  relying  entirely  on 
what  one  may  shoot  in  a  country  so  encumbered  by 
mountain  and  forest  that  rapid  progress  is  impossible. 
Often  enough,  riding  along  the  narrow  ribbon  of 
forest  track,  I  have  looked  at  the  huge,  silent,  scarce 
penetrable  dells  and  billows  of  woodland  beside  me, 
much  as  a  passenger  on  a  steamer  may  look  at  the 
unfathomable  sea  below  the  rail.  So  safe  upon  this 
tiny  space  of  plank,  or  clearing — so  close  to  death, 
one  step  outside  !  .  ,  .  The  intense  silence  of  the 
Papuan  forests,  the  immovable  star  of  light  standing 
fixed  on  each  glossy  leaf  in  the  depths  of  the  ocean 
of  green,  while  high  above,  the  lofty  crests  may  be 
struggling  furiously  with  a  south-east  gale,  and 
breaking  up  the  sunrays  into  scintillating  fire,  seems 
to  add  to  the  almost  personal  fear  excited  by  these 
great  solitudes.  The  spirit  of  the  wilderness  is  there, 
and  none  of  the  little  shelters  erected  by  Old  World 
peoples  for  their  shivering  souls  to  creep  into,  in  the 
presence  of  the  unknown,  can  serve  our  turn.  Pan, 
the  god  of  river  reed-beds  and  sunny  thickets, 
through  which  a  soft-skinned  nymph  might  flit  like 
a  butterfly — Baldur,  stately  and  gentle  spirit  of  mur- 
muring pine-woods,  and  green  mountain  slopes  where 
sweet-breathing  cattle  wander — all  the  quaint  and 
graceful  and  poetic  figures  of  northern  and  southern 
mythology  alike — do  not  their  very  apparitions 
tremble,  and  reproach  us  with  gentle  frightened  eyes, 
when  we  set  them  down  in  fancy  in  these  primaeval 
wildernesses  .''...  Nature    in  the  Old   World  has 


72  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

been  for  so  many  hundred  and  thousand  years  just 
"  the  old  nurse  "  of  her  children,  that  it  is  terrifying 
to  meet  her  face  to  face  in  the  lands  where  she  turns 
a  hard  unseeing  countenance  upon  us,  and  crushes  us 
— not  for  sport,  simply  not  knowing  of  our  existence 
— with  one  least  finger-tip  of  the  giant  hand  we  have 
unwittingly  brushed  against.  Yet  our  revenge  is 
waiting,  for  in  the  generations  that  are  to  come  we 
shall  seize  and  crush  her  and  tame  her  to  our  will,  as 
throughout  the  centuries  long  since  forgotten  she  was 
tamed  in  the  countries  that  we  have  made  our  own. 

Not  to-day,  but  to-morrow,  our  way  lies  through 
these  great  forests.  To-day  we  are  riding  merrily 
and  easily  enough  upon  a  mighty  highway  full  three 
feet  wide  in  places,  leading  up  the  course  of  the  Laloki 
River,  along  the  side  of  a  valley  that  is  certainly  one 
of  the  most  beautiful  valleys  in  the  world,  but  that, 
not  possessing  a  hotel  with  a  brass  band  and  a  motor- 
car service,  nor  being  advertised  in  tourist  time- 
tables, is  only  thought  to  be  rather  pretty  by  the  few 
settlers  who  occasionally  pass  that  way. 

The  Laloki  gorge  is  here  at  least  a  thousand  feet  in 
sheer  depth,  and  looks  a  good  deal  more.  Closed  in 
by  magnificent  ramparts  and  castellations  of  basalt, 
with  here  and  there  an  unconsidered  forest  or  two 
dropping  down  its  sides  like  a  green  kerchief  for- 
gotten by  some  giant  queen,  with  tall  tree-ferns 
spreading  spider-webs  of  emerald  lace  into  the  blue 
sky,  and  cockatoos  soaring  like  flights  of  white  butter- 
flies   against    the    thunder-purple    ranges  in   the   far 


COUNTRY   OF   COPPER  73 

distance — with  the  great  river  itself  singing  away  far 
below,  like  a  silver  thread  wound  by  unseen  hands 
from  the  giant  spindle  of  the  great  white  waterfall — 
it  is  indeed  a  spot  worth  much  travel  and  many  pains 
to  see. 

Immense  black  masses  of  stone,  looking  like 
sponges  steeped  in  ink,  lie  scattered  all  over  the 
valley.  These  are  indications  of  the  mineral  wealth 
of  the  Astrolabe  country  ;  to  the  trained  eye  they 
spell  "  COPPER "  in  large  capitals.  There  are 
several  paying  claims  rather  lower  down,  and  a  com- 
pany has  lately  undertaken  the  further  exploitation  of 
the  district.  Papua  is  as  full  of  valuable  minerals  as 
a  pudding  of  plums  ;  unfortunately,  they  take  a  good 
deal  of  finding,  and  a  good  deal  of  getting  at  when 
found.  But  they  pay  well  for  discovery  when  the 
prospector  has  money  enough  to  fit  out  a  small 
expedition,  and  stay  away  in  comfort  some  months  it 
necessary.  It  is  the  small  miner,  with  his  dish  and 
pannikin  and  swag  for  all  wealth,  who  comes  to  grief 
in  Papua,  thinking,  misguidedly,  that  the  methods 
which  answer  in  Australia  will  answer  in  Australia's 
neighbouring  colony.  They  will  not,  and  do  not, 
but  they  have  filled  many  a  roughly  dug  grave  on 
the  Mamba  and  Gira  rivers  and  in  the  steaming 
Woodlark  Islands,  and  they  have  succeeded  in  giving 
this  unlucky  dog  of  a  Papua  a  bad  name  that  it  never 
fairly  deserved,  in  consequence. 

We  have  to  get  off  and  tramp  for  a  mile  or  two  at 
the  steepest  part  of  the  track.      In  this  country  you 


74  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

do  not  exactly  ride  when  you  go  out  riding — you 
take  a  walk  accompanied  by  your  horse,  and  get  a  lift 
every  now  and  then.  We  have  had  several  long  lifts  to- 
day, and  do  not  at  all  grudge  the  walk  up  the  big  hill, 
especially  as  we  follow  the  custom  of  the  country  in 
taking  hold  of  our  horses'  flowing  tails  and  letting 
them  drag  us  behind.  This  rests  the  horse  and  rests 
the  rider  at  the  same  time — a  matter  of  some  import- 
ance on  roads  that  are  for  the  most  part  quite  steep 
enough  to  sit  down  upon  with  support  for  the  feet 
and  something  to  lean  against  at  almost  any  part  of 
the  journey. 

At  the  top  of  the  hill  comes  our  reward — we  are  in 
sight  of  Rona  Falls. 

We  have  heard  them  booming  in  the  distance  for 
a  mile  or  more,  and  here  they  are  below  us — at  least 
half  a  mile  away,  and  not  to  be  reached  save  by  a  climb 
that  nobody  ever  has  time  to  take  at  this  stage  of  a 
long  day's  journey — but  grand  beyond  description. 

Has  anyone  ever  made  a  satisfactory  pen-picture 
of  a  great  waterfall .''  To  say  that  Rona  Falls  is  about 
three  hundred  feet  in  sheer  height — considerably 
higher  than  Niagara,  though  wanting  in  the  immense 
breadth  of  that  famous  cataract — that  it  drops  down 
into  a  deep  black  gorge,  and  makes  a  lake  clear  as  grey 
agate  at  the  foot  of  the  fall — that  there  are  flights  of 
white  cockatoos  on  the  heights,  and  great  dim  moun- 
tains in  the  distance — this  is  to  say  as  much  as  a  page 
of  word-painting  could  say,  which  is  nothing  at  all. 
.   .   .   One   is,  perhaps,   not  sorry.      To  keep  Rona 


A    ROADSIDE   CAMP  75 

Falls  to  oneself,  as  the  lover  of  an  unknown  mountain 
maid  may  keep  his  pleasant  secret  hidden  in  his  heart, 
is  well  worth  while,  after  all. 

That  night  we  came  to  the  camping  ground  fairly 
satiated  with  beauties  of  scenery.  I  know  that  to- 
wards sunset  we  passed  through  wonderful  peaks  and 
passes,  and  in  view  of  exquisite  river  country,  but  I 
looked  at  it  as  stolidly  as  my  own  horse,  being  quite 
incapable  of  appreciating  any  longer.  Most  travellers, 
one  fancies,  must  have  noticed  this  dulling  of  the 
mind  that  takes  place  towards  the  end  of  a  day  of 
special  beauty,  though  few  are  egotistic  enough  to 
mention  it.  If  anyone  had  pointed  out  to  me  a 
replica  of  the  Great  Pyramid  of  Cheops,  or  one  of  the 
fire-fountains  of  Hawaii,  springing  up  a  hundred 
yards  from  the  track,  I  should  only  have  resented  the 
interruption  at  that  hour  of  the  day.  What  really 
interested  all  of  us  was — should  we  get  to  the  camp 
before  dark,  and  especially,  how  we  should  get  across 
the  river  ? 

There  is  nothing  more  charming  and  poetical — in 
a  picture  gallery  or  a  poem — than  a  ford.  At  home, 
where  bridges  follow  roads  as  naturally  as  feet  follow 
legs,  the  ford  is  merely  a  picturesque  spot  where  the 
little  girl  in  a  sunbonnet  drives  the  cattle  across  of  an 
evening,  or  where  the  fisherman  from  the  great  house 
on  the  hill  wades  in  long  boots  and  fly-trimmed  hat, 
casting  a  line  across  the  oily  shallows.  In  "the  new 
and  naked  lands  "  it  is  something  very  different — 
something  that    makes  or    spoils  the  comfort  of  an 


76  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

entire  journey,  that  holds  the  fortunes  of  a  great  dis- 
trict in  its  capricious  hand,  that  may  measure  out 
death  or  life,  even,  as  the  rains  in  the  hills  and  the 
rising  of  the  flood  may  decree. 

It  had  been  raining  a  good  deal  that  day,  and  we 
had  all  got  wet  through  a  good  many  times,  though 
no  one  thought  a  trifle  like  that  worth  mentioning. 
More,  it  had  been  raining  up  in  the  mountains  for 
several  days,  and  there  was  no  knowing  what  the 
Laloki  might  be  doing,  up  here  above  the  falls.  And 
the  light  was  failing  as  a  lamp  fails  when  the  oil  runs 
out.  And  the  track  was  so  slippery  with  clay  and 
water  that  our  horses  could  only  crawl.  It  did  not 
seem  certain  that  we  should  get  across. 

But  in  the  livid  green  gloom  that  follows  a  wet 
sunset  among  the  hills,  we  did  strike  the  slope  leading 
to  the  river,  and  in  another  minute  all  our  horses 
were  sliding  and  slithering  horribly,  right  down  to 
the  ford.  It  looked  very  high,  and  the  stream  gushed 
up  to  the  girths  at  once,  so  that  we  had  to  put  our 
feet  on  our  saddles  and  cling  on  as  we  might.  The 
force  of  the  river  was  tremendous,  and  the  beasts 
staggered  under  it  so  that  they  could  scarce  make  way. 
In  places  it  was  so  deep  that  the  saddles  were  wet, 
and  there  was  a  very  nasty  little  fall  close  to  our 
crossing  place  ;  but  the  light  held  good  till  we  were 
across  ;  and  nobody  fell  down.  ...  It  was  a  relief 
to  be  out  of  the  river  and  scrambling  up  the  darken- 
ing slope  on  the  other  side,  for  lives  have  been  lost  on 
the   Laloki   ford  before  now  ;  and  besides,   it  is   not 


A    ROADSIDE   CAMP  77 

easy  to  keep  the  unbidden  thought  of  crocodiles  out 
of  one's  head,  when  traversing  a  New  Guinea  river. 
Waterfalls  do  not  stop  the  crocodile  in  its  up-stream 
migrations  ;  it  simply  gets  out  and  travels  overland 
when  a  fall  is  reached  ;  and  so  it  comes  about  that  the 
rivers  of  the  Astrolabe  range  are  not  by  any  means 
free  from  these  troublesome  brutes,  in  spite  of  their 
height  above  the  sea. 

The  camp,  when  we  reached  it — quite  in  the  dark 
now — looked  almost  homelike,  so  glad  was  the  wet 
and  tired  and  hungry  party  to  see  its  night  quarters. 
There  was  not  much  to  see,  however.  The  "  rest- 
house  "  consisted  of  a  thatch  roof  supported  on  four 
tree  trunks,  with  a  sort  of  rough  divan  made  of  split 
branches  running  along  one  side  of  the  space  below. 
Walls  there  were  none.  A  good  fire  was  blazing 
under  the  roof  on  the  bare  ground,  and  a  Papuan 
native  with  a  very  large  head  was  tending  a  big  billy- 
can  out  of  which  issued  tempting  smells. 

There  was  a  small  surveyor's  tent  near  which 
served  as  dressing-room  to  the  ladies,  and  when  we 
had  extracted  dry  clothes  from  our  *'  swags,"  and 
changed,  we  came  out  on  to  the  high,  dark,  windy 
plateau,  where  the  night  breeze  was  crying  among  the 
eucalyptus  trees,  and  the  ripple  of  the  Laloki  rose  up 
from  far  below.  The  Papuan  boy  had  taken  off  the 
billy-can  now,  and  produced  another  from  a  second 
fire  ;  and  we  all  sat  down  on  the  fowl-perch  divan  to 
enjoy  milkless  tea  and  curried  tin  as  one  only  enjoys 
food  eaten  "  on  the  road." 


78  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

Rolled  in  our  blankets,  for  the  night  was  quite  cold, 

Mrs. and  I  slept  on  the  fowl-perch  (it  really  did 

not  look  like  anything  else)  to  the  music  of  clanking 
horse-bells.  You  tie  a  large  iron  bell  round  your 
horse's  neck  when  you  camp,  so  that  you  may  know 
where  he  is,  and  you  link  his  forefeet  together  with 
leathern  handcuffs  called  hobbles  so  that  he  cannot 
wander  very  far  away.  He  revenges  himself  as  a  rule 
by  walking  round  and  round  your  uneasy  couch  all 
night  long,  shaking  his  head  violently.  Towards  dawn 
you  get  up,  and  saying  things  to  yourself  which  you 
hope  no  one  overhears,  you  unstrap  the  bell,  and  slap 
the  harmless  creature's  face  as  hard  as  you  can.  He 
sidles  away,  and  you  go  back  to  sleep.  .  .  .  And  in 
the  morning  the  boys  take  an  hour  to  find  the  beast 
in  the  valley  where  it  has  betaken  itself  It  did  not 
care  to  stay  about  the  camp,  once  you  took  off  that 
bell. 

We  were  in  the  coffee  country  now,  nearly  two 
thousand  feet  above  sea-level.  The  climate  was 
notably  changed.  There  was  still  plenty  of  heat  in 
the  middle  of  the  day,  but  it  was  not  oppressive,  and 
the  mornings  and  evenings  were  crystalline  and  cool. 
Fever,  I  was  not  surprised  to  hear,  does  not  exist  in 
the  Astrolabe  range  (unless  in  the  case  of  people  who 
have  brought  it  up  with  them  from  the  lowlands),  and 
white  people  enjoy  excellent  health. 

"What  about  the  natives.?"  I  asked.  It  had 
puzzled  me  a  good  deal,  during  the  past  day  or  two, 
to  note  that  the  country  was  apparently  desolate  of  all 


HIDDEN   VILLAGES  79 

native  life.  We  had  not  passed  a  single  house  or 
village,  nor  had  we  seen  a  solitary  Papuan  on  the 
track,  except  a  few  carriers. 

There  were  villages — a  good  many  of  them — on 
the  road  we  had  traversed,  I  was  told.  The  country 
was  peaceful  now,  but  in  the  times  when  the  natives 
were  ceaselessly  raiding  and  killing  one  another,  it 
was  necessary  to  build  the  villages  where  they  could 
not  easily  be  found  or  surprised. 

So,  if  you  went  off  the  track  and  climbed  about 
among  the  apparently  inaccessible  peaks  of  the  high 
ranges,  you  would  find  village  after  village,  some 
quite  near  to  the  road,  others  far  away,  but  all  cleverly 
concealed  from  sight  in  the  dense  vegetation.  Many 
of  them  were  built  on  the  sides  of  precipices  in  such  a 
way  that  the  inhabitants  could  only  gain  access  to 
them  by  climbing  up  long  ladders.  Others,  again,  were 
set  on  the  top  of  sharp  peaks.  There  were  even  some 
of  the  celebrated  tea  houses  not  many  miles  away,  but 
it  was  not  likely  that  we  should  have  time  to  visit 
them.  Anyhow,  it  was  a  fact  that  the  natives  of  that 
part  of  the  country  were  not  easily  visited.  No,  they 
were  not  hostile  ;  they  simply  kept  to  their  old  ways, 
and  did  not  trouble  about  the  whites.  And  in  any 
case  their  numbers  were  small.  Most  of  the  land 
about  the  Astrolabe  was  vacant  ;  that  was  one  of  the 
reasons  for  its  becoming  a  centre  of  settlement.  The 
Government  in  Papua  did  not  allow  settlers  to  have 
any  land  that  was  or  might  be  useful  to  the  native 
tribes.     Fortunately,  there  was  plenty  for  all — millions 


8o  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

of  acres  in  the  Territory  that  nobody  needed  ;  and 
there  was  plenty  even  up  here,  where  the  whites  had 
been  nibbling  about  for  twenty  years. 

I  was  soon  to  see  for  myself.  The  third  day's 
ride — a  short  and  easy  one — led  us  through  tracts  of 
dense  dark  forest  and  over  many  little  ranges  unseen 
in  the  surrounding  "  bush,"  but  felt  as  we  scrambled 
slowly  up  and  down  to  our  destination  for  the  pre- 
sent— a  plantation  in  the  very  heart  of  the  Astrolabe 
mountains,  some  seven-and-thirty  miles  from  Port 
Moresby. 

It  is  easy  to  do  the  journey  in  two  days,  and 
some  of  the  residents  can  do  it  in  one.  We  had 
come  slowly,  as  my  companion  was  not  able  for  trying 
rides  ;  but  we  had  certainly  not  lost  by  the  delay, 
since  there  had  been  all  the  more  time  to  enjoy  the 
wonders  of  the  scenery. 

Anything  more  beautiful  than  the  little  mountain 
house  to  which  we  came  in  the  declining  sun  of  the 
late  afternoon  was  surely  never  seen  out  of  a  fairy 
tale.  It  stood  tiptoe  on  the  very  peak  of  a  sharp 
little  hill,  with  a  clump  of  giant  bamboos,  like  huge 
green  ostrich  plumes  a  hundred  feet  high,  serving  as 
background  to  its  quaint  prettiness  of  architecture.  It 
was  a  mere  three-roomed,  one-storeyed  bungalow, 
almost  all  deep  verandah  and  overhanging  eaves,  with 
a  flight  of  rustic  steps  leading  up  to  its  little  brown 
door,  and  a  high,  deep,  palm-thatch  roof  set  low  down 
on  its  walls  of  woven  bamboo,  like  a  shady  hat  pulled 
over  a  planter's  sun-browned  face.     It  looked  abso- 


Photo  W.  Whit  lot. 


A    IliiMh,    IN     I'AI'L'A 


To  face  page  80. 


A   PLANTATION   BUNGALOW  8i 

lutely  harmonious,  and  as  much  a  part  of  the  place  as 
a  bird's  nest  built  in  a  tree. 

William  Morris  would  have  liked  that  little  bunga- 
low, for  it  unconsciously  illustrated  many  of  his  ideas  ; 
perhaps  yet  more  those  of  Ruskin.  It  was  nothing 
whatever  but  a  small  cheap  house,  put  together  out  of 
native  materials  because  planking  and  iron  were  dear 
and  difficult  to  carry  ;  but  it  had  somehow  managed 
to  capture  just  that  perfect  simplicity  and  inevitable 
beauty  after  which  our  own  *'  rustic  "  and  "  artistic  " 
styles  too  often  toil  in  vain.  The  deep  vault  of  the 
roof,  the  immense  eaves,  the  warm  brown  tones  of 
thatch  and  wall,  the  steps  and  verandah  rails  made 
out  of  saplings  roughly  barked,  the  windows — shutters 
of  bamboo  panelling  that  swung  outward  on  a  hinge 
and  fastened  with  a  bar — all  were  perfectly  fitted  to 
their  end  and  perfectly  satisfying  to  the  eye.  And 
the  view  1 

When  one  had  climbed  slowly  up  the  steep  cork- 
screwed path  that  led  to  the  bungalow — passing 
between  borders  of  pineapples  in  full  bearing,  and 
close  by  a  trailing  mass  of  granadilla  vine  heavy  with 
varnished  fruit — one  stood  upon  a  very  small  space 
of  artificially  levelled  ground,  just  large  enough  to 
support  the  house.  In  front  and  at  each  side  the  red 
earth  fell  suddenly  away,  so  that  the  tops  of  the 
young  rubber  trees  shook  their  fimbriated  leaves 
almost  under  the  verandah,  and  the  coffee  shrubs 
made  a  quaint  pattern  of  foreshortened  foliage  right 
down  to  the  river  below.     W^hen  one  stood  upon  the 

G 


82  THE    NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

steps,  the  scarlet  and  pink  foliaged  crotons  seemed  to 
stretch  their  leaves  right  across  a  small,  bright  minia- 
ture painting  of  stream  and  coffee  plantation  and 
green  grass  and  brown-roofed  machine  houses,  into 
the  high  blue  sky  above  the  belt  of  uncleared  trees. 
It  was  as  if  the  house  had  been  built  upon  a  watch- 
tower. 

The  plantation  was  a  mere  handful  of  some  sixty 
acres  snatched  out  of  the  heart  of  the  bush.  It  lay  at 
the  bottom  of  a  cup-shaped  hollow,  surrounded  on  all 
sides  but  one  by  perpendicular  walls  of  grass  and 
trees.  On  that  one  side  the  river  had  made  an  open- 
ing, and  through  the  rent  in  the  dark  green  tapestry 
of  forest  one  saw  the  far-away  blue  hills.   .   .   . 

All  through  the  Astrolabe  mountains  one  comes 
every  now  and  then,  unexpectedly,  upon  these  lovely 
glimpses  of  sapphire  and  hyacinth-coloured  ranges, 
framed  in  rugged  gaps  of  dark-green  forest.  .  .  . 
Pages  of  unwritten  poetry  every  one,  full  of  fantastic 
dreams  and  butterfly  fancies  that  only  break  in  the 
capturing.   .  .   . 

But  in  actual  travel,  one  does  not  often  make 
the  proper  reflections  at  the  proper  moment — indeed, 
it  may  be  taken  as  a  rule  that  one  makes  the  wrong 
and  un-proper  reflections,  at  any  time  when  fine  feel- 
ings might  seem  to  be  called  for.  I  certainly  did  not 
begin  poetising  about  distant  views  of  the  Astrolabe 
on  the  moment  of  our  arrival  at  the  coffee  plantation. 
That  came  days  later.  At  the  moment,  I  was  too 
hungry  to  think  seriously  of  anything  except  food, 


SCENERY   AND    FIREFLIES  83 

though  only  a  Burns  Philp  pack-mule  could  have 
been  totally  insensible  to  the  beauty  of  the  place. 

We  gave  the  horses  to  the  boys  and  went  into  the 
house.  Most  of  its  furniture  was  a  makeshift,  con- 
cocted out  of  local  materials,  but  there  was  not  a  bit 
of  it  that  you  could  not  have  put  into  an  "interior," 
and  delighted  in  if  you  were  a  great  painter.  There 
were  no  pictures  on  the  wall,  but  you  could  always 
have  one — much  better  than  anything  Corot  or 
Turner  could  have  done  for  you — by  simply  swing- 
ing wide  one  of  the  oblong  bamboo-plait  shutters  and 
instantly  painting  on  the  wall  a  matchless  landscape 
study,  four  feet  by  three.  The  door  generally  framed 
in  a  larger  and  more  brilliant  piece  of  *'  genre,"  com- 
posed of  several  rose  and  madder-red  croton  shrubs, 
and  one  or  two  of  bright  daffodil  colour,  with  a 
butterfly  as  big  as  a  swallow,  and  most  brilliantly 
blue,  hovering  in  the  sun  above  the  leaves.  The 
back  door  opened  upon  a  picture  after  the  Japanese  style 
— a  gigantic  arcade  of  feathery  bamboos  fluttering  with 
the  pretty  black  and  white  wings  of  small  birds  that 
came  after  the  drying  coffee.  And  after  dark,  that 
you  might  not  miss  the  beauties  of  the  day,  fireflies 
came  and  made  illuminations  of  ghost-like  green  all 
along  the  edges  of  the  overhanging  thatch,  where 
glass-like  drops  of  the  sunset  shower  hung  still  and 
clear,  sending  out  crystal  rays  in  the  faint  light  of  the 
lamps  inside  the  house.  And  all  day  and  all  night 
the  little  cool  river  down  below  kept  on  singing. 

If  luxury  is  wanting  in  the  life  of  a  Papuan  planter 


84  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

beauty  never  need  run  short.  There  is  scarcely  a 
plantation  in  the  Territory  that  is  not  picturesque  by 
nature,  and  none  that  cannot  be  made  so.  The  more 
favoured  beauty  spots — and  of  these  there  are  many — 
need  little  to  turn  them  into  very  Paradises  of  loveli- 
ness. Brilliant  shrubs  and  trees  take  root  and  grow 
for  the  asking  ;  flowers  are  neglected  for  the  most 
part,  but  would  grow,  practically  without  attention,  if 
once  sown.  The  numbers  of  rivers  and  streams  that 
cut  through  the  mountain  ranges  and  the  natural  lie 
of  the  ground,  always  more  or  less  sloping,  suggest 
fountains,  ponds,  terraces  almost  of  themselves. 
There  is  not  one  of  the  economic  products  of  Papua 
that  is  not  beautiful  in  itself.  Moreover,  nothing 
could  be  more  stately  than  the  avenues  of  splendid 
palms  that  make  up  a  copra  plantation.  Coffee  might 
well  be  grown  anywhere  as  an  ornamental  shrub  of 
the  highest  beauty,  apart  from  its  value.  Sisal-hemp 
is  to  all  appearance  the  same  as  the  ornamental  aloe 
that  is  grown  in  pots  all  over  the  Continent.  Rubber 
is  an  extremely  handsome  tree  at  any  stage  of  growth. 
I  know  well  there  are  many  who  will  laugh  at  the 
very  idea  of  considering  appearances  where  a  plan- 
tation is  concerned  ;  but  if  a  man  can  combine  the 
pleasures  (which  are  undoubtedly  great)  of  orna- 
mental gardening  and  park-making,  with  the  profit 
of  copra,  or  coffee,  or  rubber  trading,  it  is  surely  so 
much  to  the  good  for  him. 

For  many  weeks  after  that  visit  to  the  Astrolabe, 
when  wandering  about  the  Territory  seeing  district 


WORK    FOR    PIONEERS  85 

after  district  emerge  from  savagery  to  civilisation  and 
beauty,  the  vision  of  certain  houses  in  England  and 
Ireland  used  to  haunt  me  with  a  sense  of  painfully 
wasted  forces.  The  pioneering  and  reclaiming  in- 
stinct is  so  strong  in  the  whole  British  race  that  it 
finds  an  outlet  in  many  strange  ways  when  denied  its 
natural  career.  I  have  known  well-to-do  families  in 
the  country  who  did  their  own  building,  gardening, 
baking,  soap-making,  out  of  sheer  pleasure  in  handling 
elemental  things  ;  some  who  regarded  the  clearing  of 
a  bit  of  copse,  or  the  altering  of  the  course  of  some 
small  stream,  or  the  planting  of  a  thousand  young 
trees,  as  a  tit-bit  much  too  dainty  to  be  left  to  the 
hands  of  labourers,  and  who  would  ask  instead  a  few 
favoured  friends  to  come  and  enjoy  the  task  in  their 
company.  I  have  seen  men  of  high  education  and 
refinement  absorbed  in  the  poor  and  unprofitable 
haying  of  their  own  grounds  to  such  an  extent  that 
they  could  scarcely  be  got  into  the  house  for  a  meal, 
and  counting  every  hundredweight  of  crop  with  far 
more  interest  than  they  ever  showed  in  the  harvesting 
of  dividends,  patients,  or  clients.  And — {^pace  Emil 
Reich  and  his  school) — 1  have  known  hundreds  of 
country  ladies  who  loved  the  handicrafts  of  the  house 
and  garden  to  the  full  as  much  as  their  grandmothers 
did,  and  sadly  missed  the  many  absorbing  little  house- 
hold tasks  that  recent  civilisation  had  placed  out  of 
their  reach.  And  I  longed  to  see  a  few  hundred 
such  people  settled  in  this  half-tamed  land,  to  use 
their  northern  energies  and  their  snow-fed  strength, 


86  THE    NEW    NEW   GUINEA 

and  their  dormant  powers  of  organisation,  contriv- 
ance, adaptation,  in  the  service  of  the  new  young 
country. 

After  all,  why  not  ?  What  are  the  sons  of  these 
families  doing  ?  Entering  overcrowded  professions 
that  will  provide  bread  and  butter  for  middle  age  at 
the  price  of  all  their  youth,  and  some  thousands  of 
pounds  to  boot — going  out  to  colonies  where  a 
living  must  be  wrenched  from  bitter  soils  buried  half 
the  year  in  snow — spending  their  lives  in  airless 
offices,  with  a  fortnight's  shooting  in  the  autumn, 
and  a  stray  week-end  on  the  golf-links,  for  all  their 
share  of  the  great  out-of-door  world  that  calls  to 
every  Englishman  so  insistently  and  often,  perforce, 
so  vainly.  It  is  true  that  in  colonial  life,  as  else- 
where, you  cannot  have  your  cake  and  eat  it.  You 
cannot  enjoy  the  pleasure  of  breaking  in  a  new 
country  and  the  pleasures  of  all  the  newest  plays  and 
latest  exhibitions  at  the  same  time.  You  cannot  shut 
the  door  on  that  tiresome  and  costly  jade.  Society,  and 
yet  have  her  at  hand  to  amuse  an  occasional  dull 
moment.  It  is  exciting  and  pleasant  to  follow  the 
hounds  and  carry  a  gun  across  the  stubble,  and  it  is 
also  exciting  and  pleasant  to  hunt  crocodiles  on  your 
plantation  river  and  make  trophies  of  teeth  and  jaws, 
or  to  go  after  wild  boar  in  the  hills  ;  but  the  man 
who  has  the  one  must  not  look  back  and  hanker  after 
the  other.  Still,  all  in  all,  the  right  kind  of  man  finds 
the  colonial  life  the  more  satisfying  and  profitable  of 
the  two.     As  for  the  wrong  kind  of  man,  he,  like  the 


LANDS   FOR   SETTLERS  87 

poor,  is  always  with  us,  but,  unlike  the  poor,  he  is 
not  with  us  (individually)  for  long.  You  can  waste 
your  capital  and  go  to  the  dogs  in  Papua  just  as  com- 
pletely and  as  quickly  as  in  London,  if  you  are  the 
kind  to  do  it. 

It  may  as  well  be  said  here  as  anywhere  else  that, 
once  for  all,  Papua  is  no  country  for  the  man  who 
cannot  raise  at  least  a  couple  of  thousand  to  start  on  ; 
no  country  for  the  old,  the  delicate,  the  idle,  the  fine 
gentleman  or  fine  lady.  For  the  well-bred  man  who 
because  of  his  breeding  will  turn  a  hand  to  anything, 
and  because  of  his  racial  pride  will  never  say  die,  for 
the  man  with  youth  and  strength  and  common  sense, 
and  the  woman  who  will  *'  do  without "  and  see  him 
through — Papua  is  the  country. 

Lands  are  given  for  nothing  (actually,  for  ten  years, 
and  at  a  trifling  rental  for  long  leases).  Seeds  and 
plants  are  given  at  cost  price,  instruction  and  advice 
free.  Speculators  in  land  are  kept  out,  and  suitable 
settlers  encouraged  in  every  way.  Settlers  without 
money  are  not  wanted,  not  asked  for,  not  welcomed 
— in  fine,  are  requested  to  go  elsewhere  ;  but  settlers 
with  anything  from  two  to  five  thousand  may  be  pro- 
mised (with  ordinary  industry  and  luck)  a  fortune  in 
a  very  few  years'  time. 

To  return  to  the  coffee  plantation  and  our  visit, 
Mrs.  C.  and  myself  unpacked  our  swags  and  settled 
down  for  a  week  or  two  ;  our  escort  and  the  horses 
went  back  to  port  ;  and  we  were  left,  two  solitary 
women  in  the  Astrolabe  mountains,  among  a  heathen 


88  THE   NEW   NEW    GUINEA 

and  uncivilised  population,  with  only  a  couple  of 
white  men,  some  miles  off,  in  the  whole  surrounding 
district.  We  were  on  the  verge  of  the  unknown 
country,  as  one  is  in  most  inland  districts  of  Papua. 
The  natives  in  the  hills  at  the  back  of  the  plantation 
had,  in  some  cases,  never  seen  a  white  man,  and  very 
few  of  them  had  ever  seen  a  white  woman,  as  witness 
the  many  personally  conducted  touring  parties  that 
came  down  to  stare  shyly  at  us  during  the  course 
of  the  next  few  days.  We  had  only  a  native  girl  and 
man  to  look  after  us,  and  we  were  living  in  a  house 
that  was  a  mere  shelter  from  heat  and  rain,  as  easily 
broken  into  as  a  basket. 

Yet  we  were  perfectly  safe — much  more  than  we 
should  have  been  under  similar  conditions  in  the 
suburbs  of  any  great  city.  The  truth  is  that  the 
Papuan  native  in  these  days  scarcely  ever  attacks 
white  men,  and  certainly  never  does  so  in  the  planta- 
tion districts.  They  do  not  mean  him  harm,  he 
knows  ;  they  have  not  taken  away  his  land  ;  they 
employ  him  at  times  on  the  plantation,  and  pay  him 
and  feed  him  well  for  his  work  ;  they  give  him 
tobacco  for  his  fruit  and  vegetables  when  he  wants  to 
trade — why  should  he  destroy  the  goose  that  lays 
these  golden  eggs  .?  It  is  true  that  he  keeps  up  his 
old  habits  of  murder  and  man-eating  on  the  sly,  but 
he  gracefully  conceals  these  little  failings  from  the 
whites  as  far  as  possible,  fearing,  like  Martin  Chuzzle- 
wit's  American  Colonel,  "  to  awaken  their  prejudice." 

It  is  perfectly  true  that  the  country  about  us  and  at 


HUMOURS   OF    MANSLAUGHTER      89 

the  back  was  fairly  reeking  with  murder  at  the  time  ; 
and  it  is  also  true  that  the  murders  were  so  inexpres- 
sibly humorous  that  no  one  could  have  heard  of  them 
without  laughing — which  sounds  heartless,  but  is 
nevertheless  a  fact. 

Example  :  A  and  B,  two  fine  young  men  from  a 
mountain  village,  were  walking  along  the  banks  of 
the  Laloki,  when  they  came  upon  a  third,  a  man  who 
was  rather  ill,  and  asked  their  help  to  get  across  the 
river.  They  did  not  feel  inclined  to  give  it,  because 
the  invalid  would  probably  have  bothered  them  all 
the  rest  of  the  way  to  their  destination.  But  they 
did  not  feel  inclined  to  leave  him  planted  there  either. 
So  one  of  them  put  his  head  under  water  and  the 
other  held  his  legs  till  he  was  drowned.  After  which 
they  continued  the  walk. 

Example  2  :  C,  D,  E,  and  F  were  out  for  a  happy 
day  in  the  country.  They  came  upon  two  men  by 
themselves.  C,  D,  E,  and  F  murdered  them  and 
went  on  their  way.  When  asked  in  court  afterwards 
why  they  committed  such  a  deed,  they  explained 
that  "  the  two  men  looked  so  very  cold  and 
hungry  ! " 

Example  3  :  A  young  man  killed  his  father.  No 
cause  apparent.  The  strong  arm  of  the  British  Gov- 
ernment took  hold  of  him,  and  he  was  asked  if  he 
could  "  assign  any  reason  for  the  rash  act  "  before  the 
passing  of  sentence.  The  native  interpreter  of  the 
High  Court  replied,  after  putting  the  question  to  the 
prisoner  (who  did  not  seem  to  feel  his  position  at  all 


90  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

acutely)  :   "  He  says,  Sir,  that  the  old  man  was  not 
much  good  to  anybody." 

In  all  these  cases  the  murderers  were  imprisoned 
for  several  years. 

If  we  had  met  any  of  the  culprits  (as  no  doubt  we 
did  meet  and  converse  with  others,  undiscovered)  we 
should  have  found  them  pleasant,  well-mannered  men, 
ready  to  trade  for  a  bit  of  tobacco  or  act  as  guide  to  a 
village  with  the  utmost  amiability.  Truly,  Gilbert's 
enterprising  burglar,  who  was  so  pleasant  and  sociable 
when  not  engaged  actively  in  his  profession,  would 
have  felt  at  home  in  Papua. 

It  must  be  understood,  therefore,  that  I  have  no 
moving  tales  of  personal  peril  to  relate,  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  we  two  women  were  left  alone,  among  a 
population  largely  consisting  of  murderers,  in  the 
interior  of  savage  New  Guinea.  We  passed  the  fort- 
night of  our  stay  very  pleasantly  and  quietly.  There 
was  not  so  much  opportunity  for  out-of-door  excur- 
sions as  one  could  have  wished,  since  we  were  in  the 
heart  of  the  rainy  season,  and,  in  the  mountains,  that 
means  at  least  half  the  day  in  the  house.  The  morn- 
ings were  exquisitely  fine  as  a  rule,  displaying  the 
perilous  beauty  of  light  and  colour  that,  in  every 
climate,  inevitably  suggests  something  too  good  to 
last.  About  noon  the  sky  would  cloud  over,  and 
punctually  at  one  or  thereabouts  the  mist-wreaths 
would  begin  their  witches'  dance  against  the  dark 
green  rampart  of  forest  over  against  the  house.  In 
another  quarter  of  an  hour  it  would  be  raining  as  if 


ASTROLABE   COFFEE  91 

the  Rona  waterfall  had  been  lifted  into  the  sky  above 
the  valley  and  then  let  go.  The  red  earth  would  run 
rivers,  the  young  rubber  trees  would  bend  and  droop 
beneath  the  deluge,  the  deep  thatched  eaves  of  the 
house  would  send  down  a  continuous  waterfall.  If 
you  looked  closely  at  the  leaves  near  the  verandah, 
you  would  see  under  many  a  one  some  prudent  butter- 
fly clinging  upside  down,  its  great  green  or  blue  or 
golden  wings  clapped  close  together,  so  as  to  get  the 
full  benefit  of  the  shelter.  Most  of  the  birds  retired 
into  the  close-set  labyrinth  of  the  bamboo  trunks, 
there  to  preen  and  chatter  like  a  company  of  school- 
girls all  the  afternoon.  The  wonderful  blue  land- 
scape framed  in  by  the  gap  in  the  valley  put  on  a 
veil  of  grey  mist  and  disappeared.  As  for  ourselves, 
I  am  constrained  to  admit  that  we  generally  lay  down 
for  a  siesta,  covered  up  with  a  warm  cloak  (what  a 
delight  it  was  to  need  it  1)  until  it  was  time  for 
afternoon  coffee. 

And  what  coffee  it  was  !  I  had  heard  down  in 
Port  Moresby  that  the  quality  of  the  berries  on  the 
Astrolabe  range  was  exceptionally  good.  This,  how- 
ever, had  impressed  me  not  at  all,  because  I  had 
learned  by  experience  in  many  countries  that  every 
plantation  in  the  world  surpasses  every  other  of  the 
same  kind  in  the  quality  of  its  products.  But  when 
Mrs.  C.  and  I  tasted  the  Astrolabe  coffee  .  .  . 

Well,  we  knew  no  moderation  after  that.  There 
was  only  a  fortnight  to  enjoy  in  full  something  that 
we  should  never  get  again,  and  we  lost  no  time.    The 


92  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

cook-boy's  life  was  made  a  weariness  to  him  by  reason 
of  the  number  of  times  he  was  called  on  to  roast  and 
shell  handfuls  of  beans  from  the  verandah,  and  the 
open  fire  in  the  little  cookhouse  outside  was  never 
without  a  tall  tin  pot  "drawing"  within  reach  of  the 
warmth.  It  was  certainly  the  very  best  coffee  that  I 
had  ever  tasted  ;  one  could  fancy  it  served  by  the 
dark-eyed  houris  to  the  faithful  in  a  Mussulman's 
dream  of  Paradise.  I  was  not  surprised  to  hear  that 
the  guests  at  the  Christmas  house-parties  som.etimes 
held  on  that  plantation  suffer  so  much  from  want  of 
sleep  that  they  have  all  been  found  at  once  wandering 
helplessly  among  the  coffee  bushes  at  two  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  unable  to  rest  !  Fine  though  it  may  be 
in  flavour,  this  coffee  is  much  stronger  than  a  novice 
would  suppose,  and  ten  or  twelve  cups  in  a  day  is 
enough  to  upset  the  nerves  of  the  strongest. 

The  reader  who  knows  all  about  coffee  will  pardon 
a  little  digression  here  for  the  sake  of  his  less  favoured 
brethren. 

Coffee  is  a  rather  small  bush,  not  more  than  three 
or  four  feet  high  when  well  tended.  It  has  dark 
varnished  leaves  very  like  those  of  the  laurestinus.  It 
flowers,  in  Papua,  three  or  four  times  a  year,  for  only 
a  day  or  two  at  a  time,  the  flowers  being  small,  white, 
and  exquisitely  scented.  Later,  the  branches  are 
covered  with  small  scarlet  berries  much  like  a  cherry. 
The  stone  of  the  berry  is  the  coffee  "  bean."  Picking 
lasts  as  a  rule  from  January  to  March,  successive 
crops  following  each  other  closely  on  the  trees.    Each 


COFFEE    INDUSTRY  93 

plantation  has  its  pulping-house,  where  the  berries 
are  separated  from  the  "beans"  by  a  simple  machine 
which  can  be  worked  by  a  couple  of  men.  This 
machine,  in  medium  sizes,  costs  only  about  thirty 
pounds.  The  berries  are  poured  into  a  hopper, 
through  which,  driven  by  a  stream  of  water,  they  pass 
into  a  compartment  which  is  partly  blocked  by  a 
metal  disc.  This  disc  is  covered  with  sharp  pro- 
jections, against  which  the  berries  are  crushed  as  the 
handle  of  the  machine  is  turned.  The  "bean"  is 
thus  pressed  out  of  its  succulent  envelope,  and  sepa- 
rated into  two  lobes,  covered  with  a  gluey  saccharine 
matter  in  which  they  are  allowed  to  lie  until  a  slight 
fermentation  takes  place,  when  they  are  washed  in 
several  waters  and  dried  in  large  trays.  The  "  parch- 
ment"  or  inner  skin  of  the  bean  is  not  removed  but 
allowed  to  remain  ;  usually,  the  buyer  of  the  coffee 
has  it  taken  off  by  machinery  of  a  more  com- 
plicated and  expensive  kind  than  the  pulping- 
machine. 

As  regards  the  prices  obtainable,  the  coffee  industry 
is  severely  handicapped  by  the  Australian  duty  of 
threepence  a  pound  (which  will  probably  be  removed 
before  long),  but  even  under  these  circumstances  it 
has  been  made  to  pay.  There  is  not  a  coffee  planta- 
tion in  Papua  at  the  present  date  run  on  economical 
and  businesslike  lines.  Nearly  all  the  work  is  left  to 
natives,  who  know  only  so  much  as  a  Papuan  over- 
seer, himself  ignorant  and  careless,  can  teach  them. 
Carriage,  owing  to  the  lack  of  roads,  is  very  costly. 


94  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

And  yet  the  plantations  somehow  or  other  pay  for 
their  keep.     The  moral  is  obvious. 

A  small  plantation  of  fifty  acres  or  so  should  cost 
about  ;^200  to  clear  and  plant,  and,  if  carefully 
looked  after,  should  be  run  for  about  £25'^  ^^  ;^45° 
a  year,  including  ;^200  salary  for  a  manager.  Coffee, 
in  the  Astrolabe  country,  bears  in  two  years,  so  the 
planter  has  not  long  to  wait  for  his  returns.  About 
5  to  7  cwt.  an  acre  may  be  safely  reckoned  on,  and 
this  sells,  in  Port  Moresby,  for  £6o  a  ton,  or  if 
graded  by  a  machine  that  costs  the  planter  about 
^loo  to  buy  and  set  up,  £()0  a  ton. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  growing  and  preparing  of 
the  coffee  that  any  sensible  man  cannot  manage  for 
himself,  with  the  aid  of  a  few  of  the  best  and  most 
recent  handbooks.  The  native  labour  is  not  equal  to 
that  of  Ceylon  or  Malaysia,  being  less  intelligent  and 
more  expensive.  It  suffices  for  the  purpose,  however, 
and  one  must  always  remember  that  neither  in  Ceylon 
nor  Malaysia  can  the  planter  obtain  valuable  estates 
for  nothing. 

The  rains,  even  in  the  rainy  season,  generally  clear 
off  about  sunset.  Waked  up  by  the  afternoon  coffee, 
we  were  usually  ready  to  enjoy  that  wonderful  display 
when  it  came,  and  six  to  half-past  found  us  on  the 
verandah  looking  out  over  the  valley. 

In  Port  Moresby  the  sunsets  had  been  a  marvellous 
riot  of  flaming  jewel-like  colours,  shot  through  by 
a  certain  peculiar  and  very  lovely  blue  that  1  never 
noticed  in  the  sunsets  of  any  other  land.     Up  here 


SUNSET   IN   THE   ASTROLABES        95 

in  this  green  cup  of  the  hills  they  were  quite  different, 
but  equally  wonderful  in  their  way.  When  the  sun 
had  sunk  in  an  angry  welter  of  red  and  copper,  just 
before  the  dusk  came  on,  the  whole  valley  would  fill 
up  with  a  tide  of  translucent  green  as  if  the  sea  had 
suddenly  submerged  us  under  a  thousand  feet  of  clear 
salt  water.  This  extraordinary  afterglow  lasted  about 
a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  then  darkened  down  into 
night.  With  the  first  rising  of  the  green  tide  burst 
forth  in  an  unanimous  chorus  the  evening  cry  of  the 
crickets,  like  thousands  of  little  whistles  all  sounding 
together,  or  like  the  escape-valves  of  a  myriad  of  toy 
steam-engines — so  loud  that  it  was  necessary  to  raise 
one's  voice  in  speaking  while  the  chorus  lasted.  It 
was  of  short  duration.  When  the  light  went  out  the 
crickets  ceased,  and  the  frogs,  who  had  been  croaking 
and  crying  like  strange  birds  from  the  river  below  all 
the  time  of  the  sunset,  crept  into  their  marshes  and 
were  silent.  Outside  the  stage,  I  never  imagined 
anything  so  completely  Wagnerian  in  my  life.  Light, 
sound,  mise-en-scene,  were  all  the  spirit  of  the 
Nibelungen  Ring.  And  if  the  wild  dance  of  the 
mist-maidens  across  the  dark  hill-sides  early  in  the 
afternoons  was  not  a  Valkyrie-Ride,  or  the  very  next 
thing  to  it,  then  no  natural  phenomenon  ever 
suggested  an  idea  to  a  poet  since  time  and  poets 
began. 

One  cannot  recommend  the  Astrolabe  country  as 
a  suitable  residence  for  the  aged  or  the  infirm.  It  is 
almost  entirely  made  up  of  hills.     When  you  leave 


96  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

the  bungalow  door  you  plunge  down  a  descent  as 
steep  as  a  waterfall  or  crawl  up  a  height  like  a  sharply- 
sloped  roof,  reversing  the  process  when  you  return. 
This  is  supposed  to  be  very  good  for  the  coffee.  It 
is  also  good  for  the  planters'  muscles,  without  doubt. 
One  begins,  after  a  little  of  this  sort  of  exercise,  to 
understand  why  the  native  of  the  high  mountain 
ranges  is  said  to  be  unable  to  walk  when  he  comes 
down  to  the  flat  for  the  first  time.  It  is  a  fact  that 
the  mountain  tribes  do  seem  to  suffer  a  little  when 
travelling  on  the  flat,  until  they  get  accustomed  to  it, 
and  that  they  step  "  high  and  disposedly,"  like 
Queen  Elizabeth  when  she  danced,  until  they  learn 
to  alter  their  mode  of  walking. 

The  weather  was  so  wet  in  the  afternoons,  and  all 
the  tracks  were  in  such  a  state  of  bog,  that  we  could 
not  go  about  the  country  as  much  as  we  wished,  and 
had  to  amuse  ourselves  watching  the  small  operations 
of  the  plantation.  The  coffee  of  the  last  two  pick- 
ings was  being  seasoned  and  dried  in  the  sun.  This 
needed  constant  watchfulness  on  the  part  of  the  native 
workers,  to  seize  and  carry  under  the  house  all  the 
huge  trays  with  which  the  backyard  was  spread  as 
soon  as  the  sky  became  overcast,  and  to  carry  them 
out  again  as  soon  as  a  gleam  of  sun  appeared. 
Weeding  was  always  going  on  among  the  trees,  and 
at  the  picking  season  there  was  no  doubt  a  good  deal 
of  stir,  if  one  had  been  there  to  see.  But,  on  the 
whole,  the  work  of  the  place  went  forward  so  quietly 
that  one  scarce  noticed  it  at  all. 


A    PAPUAN   GAME   BAG  97 

One  of  the  chief  events  of  the  day  was  to  see 
what  our  nearest  neighbour's  shooting-boy  would 
bring  in.  His  employer  kindly  shared  the  game  with 
us,  as  there  was  generally  more  than  he  needed,  and 
we  had  no  means  of  obtaining  fresh  meat  for  our- 
selves. When  the  big  Papuan  appeared  below  the 
verandah,  shaking  the  rain  out  of  his  huge  mop  of 
hair  like  a  water-dog,  and  dripping  little  rivers  from 
every  curve  and  corner  of  his  naked  brown  body,  it 
was  as  good  as  a  dip  into  a  lucky-bag  to  see  him 
open  his  netted  string  sack  and  spill  out  its  contents. 
Pea-green  parrots  with  yellow  wings — parrots  blue 
and  grey  and  crimson — parrots  almost  all  white  ; 
pigeons  with  iridescent  breasts — great  hornbills  as 
large  as  a  turkey,  with  incredible  bills  that  looked 
like  masks  put  on  for  fun  ;  Gaura  pigeons  (a  true 
pigeon  as  big  as  a  goose,  with  clusters  of  beautiful 
grey  aigrettes  on  its  head),  a  plump  young  wallaby, 
a  hind-quarter  of  wild  pig  ;  some  indescribable  bird 
that  we  had  never  heard  of  and  could  not  identify — 
for  what  we  knew,  it  might  be  a  new  species — but  we 
ate  it  all  the  same  ;  these  were  some  of  the  things 
that  used  to  appear  on  the  verandah  towards  the 
sunset  hour.  I  would  have  given  a  good  deal  for 
the  company  of  that  omniscient  character  who  always 
makes  one  of  a  shipwrecked  party  in  a  book  of 
adventure,  and  who  can  tell  the  sailors  where  to  look 
for  edible  nuts  and  roots,  and  what  fruits  are 
poisonous,  and  the  Latin  name,  personal  habits,  and 
domestic    history    of  every    bird,   beast,  and  reptile 

H 


98  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

that  the  exceedingly  miscellaneous  desert  island  con- 
tains. He  might  have  saved  us  more  than  once,  if 
all  the  truth  were  known,  from  the  hideous  disgrace 
of  making  a  dinner  off  some  bird  that  a  hundred 
scientific  swords  would  have  leaped  from  their  scab- 
bards to  defend  had  the  orgy  taken  place  within  hail 
of  civilisation. 

Within  the  last  few  months  the  beautiful  Gaura 
pigeon,  all  the  birds  of  paradise,  and  one  or  two 
other  species,  have  been  placed  under  legal  protec- 
tion. At  the  time  of  my  visit  this  was  not  the  case, 
and  we  might  have  plumed  ourselves  from  head  to 
foot  with  bird  of  paradise  tails  had  we  wanted.  It 
was  only  a  little  while  since  a  nest  of  these  beautiful 
creatures  had  been  found  in  the  midst  of  the  bamboo 
clump  at  the  back  of  the  house,  and  the  bush  all 
round  seemed  to  be  full  of  the  "  Raggiana " — the 
commonest  kind — although  I  only  once  saw  a  bird. 
Their  cry  was  unmistakable,  a  harsh  and  rather  ugly 
call  that  one  was  sure  to  hear  two  or  three  times 
a  day.  I  was  always  on  the  look  out  for  them,  like 
everyone  who  goes  to  New  Guinea,  and  always  being 
disappointed.  The  comet-like  flash  of  a  long  orange 
tail  across  the  track,  one  day  when  I  was  riding 
through  the  hills,  was  all  I  actually  saw  of  these 
famous  birds.  I  do  not  fancy  the  fault  was  mine,  as 
almost  every  traveller  has  the  same  tale  to  tell,  unless 
his  journeying  has  been  undertaken  with  the  object 
of  collecting  birds.  In  that  case  a  camp  is  made  in 
the  best-known  haunts  and  the  whole  day  given  up 


STRANGE   BIRD   NOISES  99 

to  searching  and  snaring.  Even  so,  the  hunters  may- 
be days  without  catching  a  glimpse  of  anything 
remarkable. 

It  was  tantalising  to  know  that  Raggianas,  Gaura 
pigeons,  the  beautiful  black-velvet  rifle-bird,  possibly 
a  "magnificent"  or  two,  with  their  incredibly  long 
tail  feathers,  and  other  rare  and  lovely  species,  were 
close  beside  us  in  the  bush  all  day,  and  yet  never  to 
see  one.  The  extraordinary  bird  noises  that  sounded 
night  and  day  out  of  the  forest  were,  however,  some 
consolation.  Birds  in  New  Guinea  laugh,  chatter, 
curse,  ring  bells,  saw  wood,  make  all  kinds  of  noises 
except  one — singing.  The  butcher  bird  has  a  pretty 
note  in  the  early  mornings,  not  unlike  the  English 
blackbird,  and  there  is  a  small  black  and  white 
creature  closely  resembling  a  Willie  Wagtail,  that 
chirps  very  sweetly.  But  for  the  most  part  the  birds 
devote  their  energies  to  the  most  amazing  clowneries. 
The  leather-neck — an  ugly  dark-coloured  creature, 
not  at  all  shy — scolds  and  carps  in  companies  high  up 
in  the  trees,  exactly  like  a  party  of  quarrelsome  old 
washerwomen.  The  bell-bird  sounds  a  clear  tink- 
tink  from  the  unseen  depths  of  the  bush,  so  like  the 
bell  of  a  pack-horse  that  it  is  often  hard  to  distinguish 
the  two.  There  is  a  pheasant  that  makes  a  noise 
exactly  imitating  the  glug-glug  of  water  being  poured 
out  of  a  narrow-necked  bottle,  even  to  the  sudden 
rush  at  the  end.  Another  chops  wood  all  night  long, 
like  a  goblin  forester.  Another  cracks  a  loud  cart- 
whip  continually.    Yet  another  saws  and  planes  indus- 


loo  THE    NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

triously  in  an  unseen  recess  of  the  liana-tangled  trees. 
The  cockatoos  scream  in  a  note  that  is  the  very 
acme  of  shrewish  indignation  when  the  tread  of  a 
horse  or  the  pad  of  a  human  foot  sounds  in  the 
solitary  gorges  that  they  love  to  keep  to  themselves. 
The  crows  laugh  hideously  ;  the  parrots  chuckle  and 
squeal  ;  the  bird  of  paradise — I  am  sorry  to  have  to 
say  it,  but  it  is  true — simply  squawks.  One  hears 
little  of  all  this  chorus  while  on  the  road,  but  at  night 
or  in  the  early  morning,  if  one  is  camped  near  the 
bush,  the  noises  are  strange  enough  to  send  a  "  new 
chum  "  almost  out  of  his  mind. 

Many  of  the  most  beautiful  birds  are  only  to  be 
met  with  above  a  certain  height.  The  blue  bird  of 
paradise  is  not  found  below  the  five-thousand-foot 
point,  and  the  "  magnificent  "  also  prefers  the  higher 
ranges.  Now  that  protective  legislation  has  been 
introduced  there  is  no  danger  of  these  wonderful  and 
beautiful  birds  becoming  extinct  ;  but  before  the  laws 
that  forbid  the  exportation  of  birds  were  passed,  so 
many  thousands  were  sent  away  each  year  that  there 
was  every  reason  to  fear  rapid  extermination. 

In  German  and  Dutch  New  Guinea  birds  of  para- 
dise are  not  protected,  and  the  supply  is  still  kept  up 
to  the  European  markets  from  these  sources.  It  is 
probable  that  along  the  boundaries  between  the  three 
countries  there  will  be  a  good  deal  of  migration  later 
on  when  the  birds  have  been  hunted  up  to  the  divid- 
ing line,  and  that  Papua  will  eventually  become  a 
refuge  for  the  whole  tribe  of  birds  of  paradise. 


BIRDS   OF   PARADISE  loi 

I  might  write  a  good  deal  about  these  birds — about 
their  exquisite  plumage,  the  dancing-grounds  which 
they  clear  for  themselves  beneath  the  high  trees  so 
that  they  can  display  their  beauty  and  grace  before 
each  other  in  wonderful  evolutions  of  stepping  and 
springing;  the  many  different  varieties  that  are  found 
in  various  places  ;  but  that  I  feel  myself  restrained  by 
the  drawback  of  utter  ignorance.  I  have  read  a  good 
deal  about  birds  of  paradise,  as  anyone  in  England 
may.  I  wanted  to  see  them,  but  I  did  not  succeed  in 
doing  so  except  in  the  instance  mentioned  above. 
Not  one  in  ten  jf  the  white  inhabitants  of  Papua  ever 
does  see  a  bird  of  paradise  alive,  and  not  one  in  a 
hundred  out  of  the  thousand  or  so  of  whites  has  been 
fortunate  enough  to  see  the  dancing-grounds.  How 
many  Englishmen  have  seen  a  reed-warbler  at  home  ? 
How  many  could  produce  a  kingfisher  at  short  notice 
for  the  pleasure  of  a  curious  guest  ? 

With  some  diffidence — since  it  is  disturbing  to 
find  oneself  in  opposition  to  writers  of  standing  and 
celebrity— I  would  here  offer  the  opinion  that  books 
of  travel  are  all  the  better,  though  possibly  the  nar- 
rower, when  the  writer  confines  himself  to  his  own 
personal  knowledge  and  experience  as  far  as  possible. 
It  is  easy  enough  and  showy  enough  to  make  a  hand- 
some volume  out  of  one's  own  experiences  padded 
out  with  the  doings  and  sayings  of  as  many  others  as 
possible  ;  to  add  flounces  of  borrowed  history,  geo- 
graphy, ethnology,  and  philology  on  to  the  meagre 
robe    of    the    traveller's    personal    observations    and 


I02  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

thoughts — in  fine,  to  make  a  "  work  "  out  of  a  mere 
book  by  processes  familiar  to   every  reader  and  re- 
viewer.    The  result,  however,  is   in   most  cases  the 
destruction  of  any  little  independent  value  that  the 
book  may  possess.    If  one  is  not  qualified  for  the  task 
of  unravelling  the  complications  of  Papuan  race  and 
language,    for    trained    observation    of   scientific    or 
zoologic   phenomena,   for   the  collecting  of  folk-lore 
and   noting   of  native   customs,  one  may  regret  the 
deficiency,   and   may   even,   in   the   midst   of   such   a 
wonderful   field   as   Papua,   deplore   the    unfortunate 
tendency  of  Providence  to  "  send  walnuts  to  those 
who  have  no  teeth,"  but  it  is  best   not  to  try  and 
remedy  the  evil.     Every  traveller  has  his  own  point 
of  view  :  let  him  use  it  for  what  it  is  worth.     There 
are  quite  as  many  readers  desirous  of  knowing  how 
white  people  live  in  New  Guinea,  how  one  gets  about 
the  country,  what  adventures  one  meets  with,  what 
money   can  be   made   in   Australia's   new   colony,   as 
there  are  readers  who  wish  to  be  enlightened  on  the 
question  of  how  the  original  inhabitants  got  there  or 
what  form  of  stone  celt  has  been  longest  in  use.     For 
the  former  alone  I  write.     Not  everybody  can  get  to 
New  Guinea,  and  the  number  of  travellers  who  really 
see  something  of  the  country  is   still  so  small  that 
each  should  offer  what  he  can  to  the  sum  of  general 
knowledge,  poor  though  the  offering  may  be. 

There  are  always  collectors  in  Papua  —  Baron 
Rothschild's  employes,  men  sent  out  by  the  govern- 
ing bodies  of  scientific  institutions,  private  workers. 


ORCHIDS   AND   INSECTS  103 

The  country  is  famous  among  entomologists  for  the 
number  of  new   species   of  insects   that   it   produces, 
and  bird-collectors  rarely  go  away  without  something 
hitherto  unknown   to  add  to  the  science  of  ornitho- 
logy.     It  costs  a  good  many  hundred  pounds  to  fit 
out  even  the  smallest  of  these  expeditions,  and  the 
larger    ones   run   into   thousands.     They  can    hardly 
"pay"    from    the    commercial    point   of  view,    even 
though  the  value  of  the  new  finds  is  very  large.     No 
doubt    they   are    not  expected   to   do   so.     It   is  the 
planter,  the   prospector,   the  leisurely  traveller,    who 
could    make   money  out  of  Papua's   rarities,    animal 
and  vegetable,  if  he  only  had  knowledge  enough  to 
turn  to  account  all  that  he  sees.     He  never  has  the 
knowledge,  however  ;  like  myself,  he  passes  the  pale 
wreaths  of  orchids  in  the  forests  and  wonders  if  the 
bloom    is   a  well-known   species  worth  a  shilling,  or 
something  new  worth  its  weight  in  diamonds,  and  can't 
guess,  and  leaves  it  there.     Or  he  catches  a  brilliant 
butterfly  in  the  net  the  plantation  hands  use  for  cray- 
fish-hunting in  the  river,  admires  it,  sees  that  it  has 
a  body  as  big  as  his  own  finger,  which  will  have  to  be 
stuffed  if  he  wants  to  preserve  the  creature,  and  lets 
it  go.     A  week  after  he  meets  a  Rothschild  collector, 
who  shows  him  a  big  green  butterfly  with  a  fat  body, 
and   says   casually  that   it   is  a  new  kind  and  worth 
fifty  pounds.     He  recognises  the  insect,  and  spends 
the    next  week  looking   out    for   another — that  fifty 
pounds    would    buy    him    two   more    horses — but   it 
never  comes  back  again.     Or  he  meets  a  bird-hunting 


I04  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

party  coming  down  from  the  high  ranges  and  sees 
them  rejoice  immoderately  over  a  couple  of  small 
finches  and  a  minute  lory  among  the  big  brilliant 
birds  of  their  catch.  These  small  specimens  are 
absolutely  new,  they  say,  and  heaven  only  knows 
what  the  men  of  science  will  not  say  they  prove  or 
disprove — in  any  case,  there  will  be  a  dozen  pur- 
chasers ready  to  weigh  those  tiny  bodies  against 
ten-pound  notes  by  and  by.  .  .  .  The  planter,  who 
perhaps  has  begun  his  place  on  a  too  limited  capital, 
and  is  sadly  cramped  in  consequence,  wonders  what 
the  clouds  of  birds  that  come  picking  among  his 
coffee  or  hemp  for  insects  may  be  worth,  if  a  man 
could  only  tell  which  were  the  specimens  that  science 
had  caught  and  branded,  and  which,  in  the  language 
of  the  cattle-station,  were  still  *'  clean-skins."  There 
might  be  the  worth  of  a  shed  full  of  new  machinery 
in  the  carcase  of  any  one  of  those  screaming  little 
nuisances.   .    .    . 

A  good  book  or  two  on  orchids,  on  butterflies,  on 
tropic  birds,  with  plates,  would  be  a  valuable  invest- 
ment for  many  a  plantation,  apart  altogether  from  the 
interest  that  it  would  lend  to  the  surroundings  of 
the  planter's  life. 

What  with  butterfly  chasing,  short  but  dirty 
rambles,  swimming  in  a  river  guaranteed  to  be  free 
from  crocodiles,  but  certainly  infested  with  leeches — 
reading,  loafing,  and  watching  the  work  of  the  planta- 
tion, a  week  or  more  passed  quickly.  On  an  evening 
that  was  rather  less  wet  than  usual  we  heard  the  distant 


ON   THE   TRACK   TO   WARIRATA      105 

jangle  of  pack-horse  bells,  and  knew  that  our  escort 
had  returned.  Next  morning  we  made  a  start  for 
Warirata,  some  seventeen  miles  away,  where  we  were 
to  spend  the  night. 

A  thousand  feet  we  mounted  during  the  day, 
the  air  growing  cooler  and  brighter  mile  by  mile, 
the  wonderful  great  gorges  and  valleys  spreading  out 
ever  wider  and  wider  below  the  narrow  ridges  on 
which  we  climbed  along.  The  clouds  gathered  under 
us  in  rolling  seas,  though  we  were  less  than  three 
thousand  feet  up  ;  they  rose  and  drifted  and  danced, 
long  and  ghost-like,  upon  the  dark  sappy  green  of 
the  opposite  hills,  and  at  last  they  wrapped  us  alto- 
gether round,  and  burst  upon  us  in  cataracts  of  heavy 
mountain  rain.  Up  something  that  might  have  been 
a  road,  and  might  have  been  a  river,  but  was  an  un- 
satisfactory sample  of  either — because  you  couldn't 
swim  in  it,  nor  could  you  walk  along  it  comfortably 
— we  led  our  sliding  horses,  and  slid  and  slipped  our- 
selves, until  in  the  dark  we  came  upon  the  lights  of 
the  little  plantation  house  at  Warirata,  and  knew  we 
were  going  to  be  clean  and  dry  and  fed  again  before 
very  long. 

If  one  wants  to  travel  in  New  Guinea  one  must 
not  mind  getting  dirty,  both  frequently  and  ex- 
cessively. We  did  not  mind,  nor  did  our  hosts,  the 
plantation  manager  and  his  wife,  object  to  the  incur- 
sion of  three  exceedingly  wet  and  miry  creatures 
into  their  sitting-room.  Nobody  does  mind  "clean 
dirt"  in  the  Territory  ;  you  are  sure  to  want  hanging 


io6  THE    NEW   NEW    GUINEA 

out  over  a  line  whenever  you  come  in  after  a  ride  or 
a  walk.  Our  swags,  great  sacks  of  painted  canvas, 
were  taken  off  the  pack-horses  ;  we  retired  and 
tidied  up  ;  and  then  came  supper.  One  never  knows 
how  welcome  supper  can  be  until  one  has  climbed 
a  mountain  to  get  it  and  been  wet  through  in  the 
process. 

The  little  estate  of  Warirata  was,  like  the  last  we 
had  visited,  planted  with  coffee.  Like  almost  every 
plantation  in  New  Guinea,  it  was  insufficiently 
financed,  and  I  fear  me  it  did  not  bring  in  much 
profit  to  anyone.  If  it  did  not  bring  profit,  how- 
ever, it  certainly  brought  pleasure  to  very  many,  for 
of  all  the  beautiful  places  to  be  found  in  the  Astrolabe 
range  there  is  not  one  that  comes  up  to  Warirata  for 
sheer  loveliness. 

The  house  itself  was  scarcely  beautiful,  being  of 
the  popular  tin-roofed  colonial  type,  with  walls  of 
some  sort  of  composition  that  resembled  very  thick 
paper.  It  was  the  surroundings  that  gave  the  estate 
its  real  attraction,  and  brought  party  after  party  of 
visitors  up  from  Port  Moresby  to  see  it,  in  spite 
of  the  twenty  miles  of  bad  road  that  lay  between. 
From  the  front  of  the  verandah  we  could  see  the 
whole  magnificent  thirteen  thousand  feet  of  Mount 
Victoria  scaling  up  into  heaven,  range  after  range, 
step  after  step,  in  a  colossal  flight  of  skyward-sweep- 
ing stairs.  It  looked  as  if  one  could  get  to  the  top 
in  a  couple  of  days,  or  three  at  most,  taking  things 
easy  and  camping  at  night.     As  a  matter  of  fact,  .the 


MOUNT   VICTORIA  107 

great  mountain  was  so  far  away  and  approached  by 
so  many  dividing  foot-hills  that  three  weeks  would 
have  been  good  time.  Mount  Victoria  has  been 
ascended  more  than  once,  and  is  fairly  well  known. 
Practically  all  climates,  from  torrid  to  frigid,  are 
found  upon  its  slopes.  It  is  below  the  perpetual 
snow  line,  but  snow  falls  occasionally  upon  the  upper 
peaks,  and  the  smaller  streams  arc  constantly  coated 
with  ice. 

The  whole  peak  is  not  visible  during  the  day,  as 
a  rule.  Like  most  New  Guinea  peaks.  Mount 
Victoria  is  veiled  in  mist  during  the  greater  part  of 
the  forenoon  and  afternoon.  Only  in  the  early 
morning  is  the  whole  mountain  to  be  seen.  It  is  well 
worth  getting  up  for. 

A  couple  of  hundred  yards  away,  on  the  other  side 
of  the  house,  there  was  yet  another  wonderful  pros- 
pect. One  followed  the  crest  of  the  hill  to  its  very 
edge,  and  there,  where  the  mountain  range  broke  off 
into  a  sharp  descent  of  a  thousand  feet  or  more,  with 
another  eighteen  hundred  sloping  away  below,  one 
could  see  across  twenty  miles  of  country,  spread  out 
small  and  fine  like  a  map,  with  silver  threads  of  rivers 
winding  across  it,  and  distant  forests  close  set  as  fur 
upon  the  limbs  of  the  giant  hills.  Beyond  this  wide 
extent  of  flat,  the  sea  seemed  to  rise  up  high  in  the  air, 
delicate  and  blue  and  finely  wrinkled,  set  with  one  or 
two  large  pale  islands,  and  edged  by  a  waving  coast- 
line that  trended  gradually  away  to  the  south-eastward. 
Port  Moresby  lay  hidden  behind  a  hill,  but  the  road 


io8  THE    NEW   NEW    GUINEA 

leading  to  it  was  plainly  visible  for  the  greater  part  of 
the  way. 

The  air  on  this  high  plateau  was  quite  cold  in  the 
morning  and  at  night,  warm  during  the  day,  but  not 
oppressively  hot.  As  it  was  then  the  middle  of  the 
hot  and  rainy  season,  the  difference  between  Warirata 
and  Port  Moresby  was  all  the  more  noticeable.  We 
had  left  decidedly  oppressive  weather — hot  nights 
without  a  breath  of  air,  still  steamy  days — in  the  plains 
below.  Less  than  three  thousand  feet  had  made  all 
this  difference,  and  we  were  within  a  day's  ride  of  the 
port. 

At  the  time  of  my  visit  it  was  supposed  that  Wari- 
rata would  eventually  be  used  as  a  Government 
Sanatorium,  but  a  rival  site  was  fixed  upon  not  long 
after  on  the  summit  of  Hombron  Bluff,  a  mountain 
rather  nearer  to  Port  Moresby.  By  the  time  these 
lines  are  in  print  it  is  probable  that  the  Hombron 
Bluff  station  will  be  completed,  and  that  any  resident 
of  Port  Moresby  will  be  able  to  enjoy  a  Saturday  to 
Monday  in  the  cool  mountain  climate  after  an  easy 
half-day's  journey. 

There  was  a  price  to  pay  for  that  beautiful  view, 
and  we  found  it  out  when  we  started  off  down  the 
Port  Moresby  track.  As  a  general  rule  beautiful 
views  do  have  to  be  paid  for,  but  one  always  forgets 
that  part  of  it  when  admiring  the  picture.  Still,  even 
if  we  had  remembered,  we  should  have  said  it  was 
worth  while. 

Everywhere  in  Papua  one  is  confronted  with  the 


UNKNOWN   WAYS  109 

tantalising  certainty  that  the  absolutely  unknown  lies 
close  to  one's  track.  Up  here  in  Warirata,  which 
has  been  a  favourite  resort  with  Port  Moresby 
people  for  more  than  twenty  years,  the  unexplored 
lands  lie  under  one's  very  eye.  This  tall,  blue  mountain 
seemingly  less  than  a  day's  march  away,  has  never 
been  ascended.  That  whole  extent  of  wave-tossed 
green,  like  a  stormy  sea  turned  to  hill  and  forest,  is 
the  beginning  of  a  great  stretch  unknown  as  yet  to  the 
white  man.  There,  in  that  mere  patch  of  bush,  lying 
some  miles  below,  one  of  the  smartest  bushmen  in 
Papua  was  lost  with  his  carriers  for  days,  and  had  to 
make  a  rush  back  for  the  coast,  depending  solely  on 
the  guns  for  food.  Go  a  couple  of  days'  travel  in 
almost  any  direction  you  may  mention  and  you  strike 
into  country  where  no  one  has  ever  been.  It  is 
fascinating,  and  maddening,  too.  Why  cannot  one 
take  a  rifle  and  a  couple  of  carriers  and  a  few  days' 
food  and  plunge  down  at  once  into  the  mysterious 
untrodden  districts  that  look  so  near  .''  Why  does 
not  someone  go  ? 

Well,  after  even  a  few  days'  travel  on  the  well- 
known  tracks  one  has  a  glimmering  of  the  barriers 
that  block  up  unknown  ways.  The  inland  districts 
are  simply  a  series  of  precipitous  ridges,  or  rather 
wedges,  that  succeed  one  another  without  a  yard  of 
flat  ground.  Mountain  tribesmen  brought  down  to 
the  coast  often  find  themselves  unable  to  walk  with 
comfort  for  weeks,  as  they  have  never  set  foot  on  any 
level  ground.     This  sort  of  surface   makes  progress 


no  THE   NEW    NEW   GUINEA 

inconceivably  slow,  and,  further,  the  jungle  off  the 
tracks  is  so  dense  that  all  the  way  must  be  hacked  out 
with  axes  and  tomahawks.  Generally  no  food  can  be 
obtained  save  what  is  carried  by  the  men.  If  the 
carriers  desert,  as  they  often  do,  the  explorer  is  left  to 
play  skipping-rope  with  the  scythe  of  Death,  and 
get  back  to  the  world  of  white  men  again  in  time  if 
he  can. 

Stanley's  journey  to  Central  Africa  was  a  mere 
picnic-party  compared  with  the  lot  of  the  New  Guinea 
explorer.  There  have  been  a  good  many  such  from 
time  to  time.  More  Governments  than  one  have 
spent  money  on  the  country.  Private  capitalists  of  a 
scientific  turn  have  sent  armed  and  provisioned 
columns  into  the  mysterious  island-continent,  and 
still  you  cannot  sail  an  hour  along  the  coast  or  travel 
a  day  into  the  interior  without  coming  in  sight  of 
untouched  lands.     Papua  keeps  her  secrets  well. 

For  all  that,  there  is,  and  has  been  for  many  years, 
a  very  large  extent  of  safe,  known,  and  accessible 
country  available  for  settlement.  In  a  country  twice 
as  large  as  England  there  is  room  for  a  good  deal  of 
unexplored  land,  and  its  existence  does  not  trouble 
the  settler,  who  knows  all  about  his  own  little  estate, 
and  has  no  need  to  occupy  himself  with  what  may  lie 
beyond. 

We  started  for  port  early  in  the  morning.  About 
seven  o'clock  a  disciple  of  G.  P.  R.  James  "might  have 
observed  three  travellers  on  horseback  making  their 
way  down  the  narrow  and  winding  track   that  leads 


A    MOUNTAIN   TRACK  iii 

from  the  wild  and  romantic  regions  of  the  Astrolabe 
range  to  the  little  town  of  Port  Moresby."  He 
might  also  have  observed  that  the  travellers  were  only 
moderately  clean  in  appearance,  and  that  they  further 
defied  the  dramatic  unities  of  the  situation  by  hanging 
their  steeds  over  with  pannikins,  billys,  baskets, 
bundles,  lanterns,  and  even  bottles.  One  fears  that 
they  would  have  made  but  a  poor  impression  at  the 
inevitable  inn  of  early  Victorian  romance.  However, 
we  were  so  far  behind  the  early  Victoria  here — being, 
in  point  of  fact,  somewhere  in  the  Middle  Ages — that 
there  was  not  such  a  thing  as  a  roadside  inn  to  be 
anticipated  in  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  Territory. 

Inside  of  half  an  hour  the  procession  had  (as  is 
usual  in  the  mountains)  resolved  itself  into  its  primary 
constituents,  and  three  human  beings  were  sliding  and 
scrambling  after  three  horses  down  a  scratch  in  the 
mountain-side  that  might  have  been  taken  for  a  drain 
or  an  earthquake  crack  or  a  giant  flight  of  stairs  in 
exceedingly  bad  repair — for  anything  you  like,  in  fact, 
except  what  it  was — a  track.  The  hopping  and  slip- 
ping and  climbing  and  crashing  through  long  grass 
and  bushes,  and  going  up  nasty  rises  that  all  too  visibly 
dropped  down  again  within  the  next  two  hundred 
yards,  went  on  for  over  an  hour,  and  then,  just  as  we 
were  preparing  to  mount  and  reap  the  reward  of  our 
hard  work  in  an  easy  canter  along  the  level,  came  an 
urgent  messenger  from  a  copper  mine,  far  above  our 
heads,  begging  us  to  come  up  and  stay  for  lunch.  .  .  . 

One  almost  wanted  wings  to  get  to  the  top  of  the 


112  THE   NEW    NEW   GUINEA 

pyramidical  hill  on  which  was  perched  the  miners' 
camp.  But  once  up,  there  was  a  brilliant  view  of  the 
Laloki  Valley,  and  a  fresh,  cool  wind  blowing  through 
the  little  bird-cage  hut,  and  plenty  of  tea.  So  we 
stopped,  as  invited,  and  I  had  my  first  view  of  a 
miners'  camp, 

I  do  not  know  just  what  I  had  expected — some- 
thing like  Bret  Harte's  early  Californian  stories 
possibly,  or  else  something  that  recalled  the  exciting 
tales  told  of  Australian  mining  fields  in  the  early  days 
of  a  rush.  Whatever  I  expected,  however,  it  was  not 
what  I  saw.  Papua  always  presents  one  with  the 
unexpected.  1  had  before  this  been  almost  painfully 
impressed  with  the  rigid  respectabilityof  Port  Moresby, 
as  compared  with  the  lawless  lotus  lands  of  the  true 
South  Seas,  but  it  had  not  prepared  me  for  the  miners' 
camp  of  the  Astrolabe  ranges  in  the  latter  end  of 
1907. 

There  were  at  that  time  only  three  claims  in  this 
particular  valley — all  copper,  and  all,  it  is  said,  excep- 
tionally rich.  That  which  1  saw  belonged  to  a  couple 
of  young  retired  Government  officials,  both  gentle- 
men, and  excellently  educated  and  mannered,  in  spite 
of  their  rough  miner  dress.  Their  hut  was  only  a 
hut,  but  it  was  clean  and  tidy.  Their  "  boy  "  served 
lunch  much  as  it  is  served  in  Sydney,  and  we  all 
talked  "  Shakespeare  and  the  musical  glasses,"  after- 
wards looking  down  over  the  lonely  Laloki  Valley  to 
where  the  unknown  countries  and  the  undiscovered 
mineral  riches  lie  waiting  for  the  pioneer. 


ON   THE   ROAD   AGAIN  113 

.  .  .  Next  to  the  safety  of  Papua,  its  respectability 
is  certainly  the  dominant  feature. 

I  shall  have  more  to  say  about  these  mines  later  on. 

At  the  time  of  my  visit  there  was  little  to  see,  and 
we  were  in  a  hurry  to  get  on  our  road  again.  Some 
months  later  a  considerable  development  of  the  Astro- 
labe field  took  place,  and  the  mines  are  now  in  a  fair 
way  to  prove  themselves  a  paying  property. 

After  that  one  headlong  descent,  the  rest  of  the 
twenty  miles  was  easy  going.  The  last  seven  were  along 
a  real  carriage  road,  which  so  excited  the  horses  that 
they  promptly  bolted,  and  the  last  of  the  way  home 
resolved  itself  into  a  series  of  races,  not  a  little  aston- 
ishing when  one  considered  how  much  our  steeds 
had  done.  But  the  New  Guinea  horse,  like  many 
other  things  in  this  astonishing  country,  is  a  good 
deal  better  than  he  looks. 


CHAPTER  IV 

The  simple  savage  and  his  simple  life — Off  to  the  Purari  River — A  day 
aground — Western  war  canoes — The  town  of  the  devil-temples — 
"Pig!" — Plantation  recruiting— The  secret  of  the  Rabi — Into 
the  innermost  chamber — What  is  it  ? — Lost  in  the  delta — The 
praying  of  the  Mantis — The  light  that  failed — lai,  the  place  to 
spend  a  happy  day — "Thalatta  !  " 

"LTAVING  seen  something  of  plantation  life  (I  was 
to  see  much  more  afterwards),  the  labour  ques- 
tion naturally  became  interesting  to  me.  A  good 
deal  depends  upon  names  and  terms  in  the  matter  of 
"interest."  The  "problem  of  the  labour  supply  of 
Papua"  sounds  like  something  extremely  dry  ;  but  it 
is  likely  to  awake  an  interest  little  short  of  passionate 
in  the  breast  of  anyone  who  really  understands  the 
conditions  of  Papuan  life.  For  it  is  certain  that  the 
whole  future  of  the  colony  turns  on  the  question  of 
whether  the  native  supply  of  workers  is  sufficient  to 
keep  the  plantations,  present  and  future,  in  going 
order,  or  whether  it  is  not. 

The  native  population  of  the  colony  is  large — 
about  three-quarters  of  a  million  by  the  latest  esti- 
mates. In  some  districts  the  natives  have  made  a 
habit  of  engaging  themselves  for  plantation  or  carry- 
ing work,  and  a  supply  is  always  to  be  depended  on. 
In  other  parts  of  the  country — especially  those  not 

114 


SUPPLY   OF   WORKERS  115 

fully  opened  up — the  idea  of  working  for  wages  has 
never  entered  the  native's  mind  ;  he  knows  nothing 
of  the  white  man  or  his  ways,  and  does  not  even 
understand  the  nature  of  money.  Other  districts 
still  are  in  a  stage  of  transition.  Now  and  then  a 
shipload  of  young  men  goes  away  to  the  plantations, 
returning  in  a  year  or  in  three  years  to  their  village 
life — possibly  to  stay  at  home  for  good,  possibly  to 
go  back  to  work  after  a  year  or  so.  On  the  whole, 
the  supply  of  workers  keeps  up  satisfactorily,  and  I 
have  never  seen  a  plantation  that  was  short  of  labour, 
although  1  have  heard  a  good  many  melancholy  pro- 
phecies as  to  what  may  happen  in  the  future. 

It  is  hard,  in  these  primitive  places  of  the  earth,  to 
believe  that  the  admirers  of  the  gentle  savage  in  his 
natural  state,  the  passionate  advocates  of  the  "  simple 
life  "  for  black  and  white  alike,  whom  one  meets  so 
constantly  at  home,  can  be  genuine  in  their  belated 
Rousseauism  of  idea — can  really  think  that  it  is  a 
wrong  against  the  savage  to  take  him  out  of  his 
natural  state  and  introduce  him  to  new  wants  and 
new  aspirations.  The  truth  is  that  these  city-bred 
sentimentalists,  who  are  so  ready  to  discourse  upon 
the  natural  man  and  his  virtues,  do  not  know  what 
they  are  talking  about.  They  are  like  the  much- 
quoted  German  philosopher  who  first  evolved  the 
idea  of  a  camel  out  of  his  inner  consciousness  of  what 
a  camel  ought  to  be,  and  then  lectured  upon  the 
natural  history  of  camels  in  general.  The  natural 
man,    to    take    the    definition    that    seems    generally 


ii6  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

accepted  by  the  sentimental-crank  school,  is  stronger 
and  healthier  than  his  civilised  brother.  He  is 
full  of  a  simple  generosity  and  a  supernatural  inno- 
cence. He  has  no  work  to  do,  and  is  the  better  for 
it.  The  generous  earth  provides  him  with  food 
unasked.  He  understands  "  herbs  and  simples,"  and 
possesses  medical  secrets  unknown  to  the  College  of 
Physicians.  He  loves  fresh  air  and  pure  water,  and 
feeds  by  preference  on  fruits  and  the  inevitable  herbs, 
with  which  all  primitive  virtue  is  inextricably  bound 
up  in  the  mind  of  the  simple-lifer.  (One  would  like 
to  ask  the  simple-lifer  for  his  definition  of  herbs  ;  I 
have  never  yet  met  with  one  who  could  go  beyond 
the  bunches  of  dried  flavourings  that  may  be  seen 
hung  to  the  ceiling  of  cottage  kitchens.)  He  has 
keener  sight  and  hearing  than  any  civilised  person. 
He  will  give  you  everything  he  has  and  want  nothing 
in  return.  He  spends  his  time  in  innocent  sports 
with  his  pleasing  wife  and  charming  children,  and  is 
in  every  way  a  worthier  person  than  yourself — "instead 
of  which  "  you  go  about  trying  to  make  him  drink 
gin  and  use  fountain  pens.  .   .   . 

Alas  for  the  coldness  of  the  cold  truth  concerning 
the  natural  man  1 

There  never  was  in  any  country  or  state  of  society 
known  to  history  such  a  savage  as  that  pictured  by 
the  simple-lifer.  A  few  uncivilised  races — very  few — 
have  a  finer  physique  than  the  ordinary  white  man  ; 
the  Zulu  or  the  Samoan,  for  example.  No  savage 
race  in  the  mass  is  equal  to  the  white  race  in  pluck 


THE   SAVAGE   AT   WORK  117 

and  endurance.  No  single  savage  but  can  be  matched 
and  surpassed  by  some  white  in  any  feat  of  strength 
or  agility  he  may  perform.  As  for  the  sentimental 
side,  most  savages  require  a  full  return,  direct  or 
indirect,  for  anything  they  give,  and  all  will  take 
everything  they  can  get.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose 
that  any  uncivilised  man  has  no  work  to  do — the 
mere  defence  of  his  village  in  a  savage  state  entails 
heavy  labour  in  the  building  of  war  canoes,  making 
of  stockades,  manufacturing  all  sorts  of  weapons. 
Game,  moreover,  must  be  hunted  and  houses  built 
and  kept  in  repair.  The  generous  earth  does  not 
grow  his  food  for  nothing.  Yams,  taro,  manioc,  and 
other  nourishing  roots  require  more  cultivation  than 
potatoes  or  cabbages.  Of  really  wild  fruit  there  is 
little  in  any  country;  and  cultivated  fruits  require 
care.  His  knowledge  of  herbs  passes  over  nineteen- 
twentieths  of  the  useful  plants  of  his  country,  and 
only  includes  the  remaining  fraction  because  some  of 
them  are  good  to  eat  or  to  paint  your  face  with,  and 
others  to  poison  your  enemy.  His  medicine  is  sorcery 
pure  and  simple.  He  shuts  out  every  breath  of  air 
from  his  hut  if  he  can  manage  to  do  so,  and  washes 
only  when  he  is  caught  out  in  the  rain.  He  eats 
roots  out  of  his  garden  when  he  cannot  get  meat, 
and  meat  when  he  cannot  get  superfluous  aunt  or 
undesirable  neighbour.  He  sees  and  hears  things  in 
the  bush  which  a  new  chum  misses,  but  his  eyes  and 
ears,  tried  by  medical  tests,  are  no  better  than  those 
of  the  white  man.      His  life  is  a  tissue  of  murder. 


ii8  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

fraud,  and  oppression,  and  his  pleasing  wife  (one  of  a 
large  number,  regular  and  irregular)  never  enjoys  a 
moment's  pleasure,  amusement,  or  peace  during  the 
whole  of  her  miserable  life  if  he  can  help  it.  As  for 
the  "  health  of  the  primitive  savage,"  it  is  at  best  not 
much  to  boast  of.  Primitive  man  grows  up  at  four- 
teen, is  middle-aged  at  twenty-eight,  and  usually  dies 
before  fifty.  He  takes  everything  that  is  going  in 
the  way  of  disease,  and  takes  it  very  badly.  In  spite 
of  the  fact  that  he  lives  without  clothes,  he  is  liable 
to  bad  colds.  He  suffers  from  some  skin  disease, 
usually  repulsive,  in  three  or  four  cases  out  of  ten ; 
he  gets  tumours  and  cancers,  and  dies  of  them,  just 
as  if  he  were  a  City  grocer,  and  he  can  even  show  you 
some  very  pretty  cases  of  hypochondria  and  hysteria 
if  you  like  to  look  for  them. 

Such  is  primitive  man,  in  almost  all  uncivilised 
countries.  Such  he  is  in  Papua  ;  and  it  is  from  this 
simplicity  of  existence  that  the  plantation  owner  lures 
him  away,  to  corrupt  him  with  the  complexities  of 
civilisation,  give  him  good  wages  and  regular  meals, 
provide  him  with  a  blanket  and  mosquito-net  for  the 
night,  and  a  calico  loin-cloth  for  the  day,  teach  him  to 
wash  himself  and  keep  his  hands  off  other  people's 
goods,  and  give  him  the  habit  of  regular  and  steady 
work. 

If  the  planter  is  not  a  missionary,  and  one  of  the 
best  kind,  then  the  name  of  missionary  has  no  mean- 
ing. As  a  matter  of  sober  fact,  he  does  a  good  deal 
more  reclaiming  and  improving  than  all  the  missions 


'iiiK  \  II. LACK  r.i';AL'rv 


To  face  page    ii3. 


MICAWBER'S   EXAMPLE  119 

put  together.  In  so  doing  he  has  benefited  himself 
as  well  as  the  native.  So  has  the  missionary.  But  he 
gets  all  the  credit,  and  the  planter  gets  none. 

If  this  is  a  digression,  it  is  a  necessary  one.  There 
arc  very  many  good  people,  at  home  and  in  Australia, 
who  are  quite  certain  that  the  native  is  wronged  by 
those  who  wish  to  develop  his  mind  and  change 
his  ways  of  living.  I  hope,  by  showing  the  real  facts 
of  the  case,  gathered  on  the  spot,  to  convince  them  of 
their  mistake. 

Returning  to  the  question  of  the  supply  of  labour, 
there  were,  and  still  are,  different  opinions  on  that 
point.  I  heard  every  variety  while  in  Port  Moresby. 
Some  laughed  at  the  idea  of  any  possible  shortage. 
Others  were  convinced  that  most  of  the  plantations 
would  be  "held  up"  for  want  of  boys  in  less  than  a 
year.  Others  did  not  know.  Others  again  were 
sure  that  they,  or  their  special  friends,  would  never 
want,  because  they  had  the  invaluable  knack  of 
"getting  on  with  natives  "  (a  gift  that  I  have  noticed 
is  claimed  by  most  white  men  in  tropical  colonies,  and 
equally  denied  by  most  to  others)  ;  while  they  were 
certain  A.  and  B.  and  C.  would  never  be  able  to  keep 
their  places  going,  because  no  boy  who  knew  them 
would  stay  with  them. 

When  in  doubt  about  any  matter  of  fact  it  is  an 
excellent  rule  to  go  and  see  tor  yourself.  The  classi- 
cal example  of  Mr.  Micawber,  who  wanted  to  embark 
in  the  Medway  coal  trade,  and  therefore  made  it  a 
point  to  go  and  see  the  Medway,  offered  an  excellent 


I20  THE   NEW    NEW   GUINEA 

example.  I  heard  that  the  small  steamer  Kia  Ora 
had  been  chartered  by  the  Government  to  go  up  the 
Purari  River  and  visit  some  of  the  little-known 
delta  villages.  The  Purari  delta  is  expected  by  all 
who  know  the  country  to  be  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant, if  not  the  most  important,  sources  of  supply  in 
the  future.  It  therefore  became  my  clear  duty  to 
"go  and  see  the  Medway  " — so  I  went. 

The  visit  of  the  Kia  Ora  was  certainly  a  happy 
chance.  The  Government  steam -yacht  Merrie 
England  is  too  deep  of  draught  to  go  up  the  rivers, 
and,  in  consequence.  Government  visits  to  the  Purari 
had  been  few.  On  this  occasion  His  Excellency  the 
Lieutenant-Governor  was  anxious  to  visit  as  much  as 
possible  of  the  delta,  and  so  the  small  steamer,  which 
only  drew  about  seven  feet,  aud  was  not  more  than 
eighty  tons  register,  was  to  take  the  place  of  the 
official  yacht.  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  be  invited 
to  join  the  Government  party,  and  accepted  very 
readily,  as  the  west  is  still  largely  unbroken  and 
little  explored,  and  not  at  all  the  sort  of  place  where 
an  ordinary  traveller  could  go  about  unescorted. 

We  travelled  from  Port  Moresby  in  the  Merrie 
England^  and  transferred  to  the  Kia  Ora  off  the  mouth 
of  the  Purari.  The  distance  was  not  so  small  as  it 
looked,  and  it  took  two  days'  steaming  to  bring  us 
into  the  gulf  and  up  to  the  mouth  of  the  river. 

The  Purari  was  only  discovered  in  1879.  Before 
that  date,  so  little  was  known  of  Western  Papua  that 
it  seems  to  have  been  possible  to  overlook  a  river  as 


THE   PURARI    RIVER  121 

big  as  the  Mississippi,  and  not  even  suspect  it  was 
somewhere  in  the  neighbourhood.  At  the  present 
date  (June,  1909),  the  river  still  remains  in  great  part 
unknown.  Messrs.  Mackay  and  Little,  in  the  end  of 
1908,  ascended  it  over  one  hundred  miles  further 
than  Sir  William  McGregor  had  done  in  1893, 
reaching  a  point  where  it  divided  into  two  main 
streams,  about  two  hundred  and  seventy  miles  from 
the  mouth.  The  river  evidently  extends  for  a  great 
distance  further  back,  but  at  the  spot  where  the 
explorers  halted  it  runs  through  a  high,  narrow, 
rocky  gorge,  and  becomes  impassable  on  account  of 
the  rapids  thus  created. 

At  the  time  of  our  visit,  early  in  1908,  only  one 
hundred  and  forty  miles  of  the  river  were  known, 
and  the  delta  was  practically  not  known  at  all.  Two 
Government  visits  have  since  been  paid  to  it,  adding 
on  each  occasion  something  to  the  still  very  imperfect 
knowledge  of  the  delta.  It  is  about  five  hundred 
square  miles  in  extent  ;  the  number  of  waterways  can 
only  be  guessed  at,  and  the  population  is  very  much  a 
matter  of  guesswork  also,  as  no  one  knows  how  many 
towns  may  lie  concealed  in  the  inner  mazes  of  the 
great  labyrinth  of  rivers. 

The  trip  began  unluckily.  Steam  launches  had 
been  up  the  river,  but  no  one  had  ever  tried  to  take  a 
seventy-ton  steamer  in,  and  no  one,  in  consequence, 
knew  whether  the  Kia  Ora  could  get  over  the  bar  or 
not.  We  reached  the  river  mouth  when  the  tide  was 
nearly  low,  and  boldly  made  the  attempt.     It  failed. 


122  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

The  steamer,  though  drawing  less  than  nine 
feet  of  water,  stuck  fast,  and  it  became  evident 
that  we  had  at  least  got  to  spend  the  day  where 
we  were. 

There  is  not  perhaps  in  the  whole  world  a  more 
melancholy  and  depressing  piece  of  scenery  than  the 
mouth  of  the  Purari  River  on  a  dull,  sunless,  glaring 
day  in  the  hot  season.  For  miles  and  miles  about 
the  low  dark  green  line  of  coast  the  sea  is  insipidly 
fresh  and  hideously  yellow,  with  the  tremendt)us  out- 
pour of  river  water.  Steamers  can  fill  their  boilers 
with  the  water  to  a  depth  of  several  feet  below  the 
surface,  and  if  no  other  drink  were  available,  the 
Purari  water,  as  it  overlies  the  surface  of  the  sea 
a  mile  or  two  out,  would  probably  support  human 
life.  It  is  thick  to  look  at  ;  there  is  no  trans- 
parency in  the  livid  flood,  and  every  ray  of  light  is 
cast  back  into  the  sky  as  from  a  brazen  mirror.  The 
resulting  glare  is  something  indescribable.  Hats, 
awnings,  umbrellas,  are  of  no  use  at  all,  for  one  lies 
between  two  surfaces,  each  almost  as  light  as  the 
other.  One  cannot  take  refuge  in  the  cabins  ;  they 
are  appallingly  hot.  The  thermometer  in  the  wheel- 
house,  which  is  comparatively  a  cool  place,  stands  at 
something  over  a  hundred.  The  shore  is  far  away, 
and  there  is  no  coolness  or  shade  in  its  low,  dark- 
coloured  flats.  From  the  unseen  river  mouth  huge 
dusky  trunks  and  branches  of  trees  come  sweeping 
past  the  ship  on  their  way  out  to  sea,  and,  simul- 
taneously, terrific  shocks  pass  through  her  small  steel 


STRANDING   THE   KU   OR  A         123 

hull  and  shake  the  simmering  brains  of  her  luckless 
passengers  to  jelly. 

"  How  those  logs  are  knocking  her  about,"  says 
one  wretched  creature,  lifting  a  languid  head  from 
a  lounge  that  seems  to  float  between  two  furnaces, 
but  that  is,  at  least,  a  degree  cooler  than  the  cabins. 
Everyone  is  more  or  less  seasick  with  the  hideous 
rolling  and  kicking  of  the  helpless  ship,  so  there  is 
an  appreciable  pause  before  another  unhappy  being 
answers — 

"  That  isn't  the  trees — it's  the  Kia  Ora  banging 
on  the  bottom  !  " 

So  it  is,  and  so  she  does  for  all  the  rest  of  that 
endless  morning.  If  a  tree  or  two  docs  strike  her, 
no  one  could  tell,  until  the  rising  tide  begins  to  lift 
her  from  the  bottom,  and  the  banging  and  pitching 
ceased.  In  another  hour  or  two  we  float  oflf  again, 
and  now  we  are  fairly  started  up  the  Purari,  for  here 
lies  the  opening  of  the  river — one  of  the  openings, 
that  is— and  the  banks  are  beginning  to  narrow  in  at 
last. 

In  the  life  of  the  traveller — perhaps  one  of  the 
happiest  lives  that  Providence  grants  to  man  or 
woman — there  are  moments  of  pure  delight  that 
stand  out  through  all  the  years,  as  mountain  islands 
stand  out  from  shining  tropic  seas.  The  first  sight 
of  a  foreign  town — the  first  day  on  a  great  ocean 
liner — the  first  morning  in  the  tropics — can  the  gipsy 
whom  the  Red  Gods  call,  and  have  called  through 
life,  ever  forget  the  rare   fragrance  of  those   perfect 


124  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

moments  ?  The  Red  Gods  are  hard  masters.  They 
ask  much,  if  they  give  much,  and  when  they  offer 
the  "  kingdoms  of  the  earth,  and  the  glory  of  them," 
they  demand  the  full  price  asked  of  old  worship, 
unmingled  and  complete.  Nor  life,  nor  death,  nor 
love  itself  can  stand  before  the  power  of  the  Red 
Gods  of  wandering  when  they  call.  Let  a  thousand 
and  ten  thousand  gipsy  hearts,  scattered  over  "  all  the 
seas  of  all  the  world,"  make  answer. 

Yet  they  pay  their  wages.  It  is  worth  having 
lived  to  see  some  things  that  most  men  die  without 
seeing.  And  a  great  tropic  river  is  not  among  the 
least  of  these. 

It  is  hard  to  say  why  the  Purari,  as  one  enters  the 
lower  reaches  of  the  main  channel,  to  forge  slowly 
upwards  against  the  tearing  current,  through  a  fever- 
smitten  solitude,  that  is  deathly  in  more  senses  than 
one,  should  be  such  a  wonderful  sight.  An  immense 
tea-coloured  flood,  fully  half  a  mile  wide,  dotted  with 
downward-skimming  logs,  on  which  the  tall  white 
cranes  perch  fearlessly — shut  in  by  low  swampy  banks, 
closely  set  with  dense  jungly  growth,  bordered  by 
stretch  after  stretch,  acre  after  acre  of  the  melancholy, 
drooping,  lovely  nipa  palm,  which  stands  with  its  root 
in  the  water  and  the  mud,  lifting  a  splendid  crov/n  of 
tall  green  plumes  to  the  heavy  heat-brooding  sky — 
this  is  what  one  sees — no  more.  If  there  are  strange 
birds  in  the  untrodden  miles  of  swamp  land,  they  are 
shy  of  our  little  steamer  and  its  beating  screw,  and 
do   not   leave   their   safe  retreats.     If  there  are  alii- 


UP   RIVER  125 

gators — indeed,  wc  know  there  are  thousands — in  the 
depths  of  that  opaque,  swift  flood,  that  keeps  its 
secrets  so  well — they  never  lift  a  snout  or  a  paw  as 
we  pass  by.  Only  the  cockatoos,  screaming  as  no- 
thing but  a  cockatoo  can  scream,  rise  from  the  palms 
near  the  bank  and  rush  far  away  inland,  yelling  wrath 
and  indignation  unspeakable. 

It  is,  perhaps,  the  inner. rather  than  the  outer  eye 
that  sees  the  wonder  of  the  place.  These  great  rivers 
of  the  burning  tropic  world  have  a  personality  of 
their  own — a  personality  that  is  strong,  malign,  trea- 
cherous ;  a  force  arrayed  against  the  traveller, 
challenging  him  to  pit  his  strength  and  his  cunning 
against  theirs,  with  death,  in  a  hundred  ugly  forms, 
as  the  penalty  of  loss.  More,  there  is,  in  some 
fashion  hard  to  explain,  but  easy  to  feel,  something 
of  the  spirit  of  every  great  river  in  every  other.  It 
is  not  only  the  Purari,  second  largest  of  the  many 
huge  unexplored  rivers  on  the  strange  island-conti- 
nent, that  we  are  going  up.  It  is  the  Congo,  the 
mighty  Amazon,  the  guarded,  remote  White  Nile — 
all  the  long,  mysterious  rivers  that  in  every  age  of 
the  world  have  called  to  the  spirit  of  adventure  and 
the  love  of  things  unknown,  lying  deep  in  the  heart 
of  man.  The  name  and  the  place  may  be  different, 
but  the  soul  is  the  same. 

The  afternoon  wore  on,  and  we  slipped  steadily  up 
the  river  against  the  strong  current,  forced  to  keep  in 
the  middle  by  the  smallness  of  our  knowledge  as  to 
its   depth.     The  great  yellow  flood  was  over  half  a 


126  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

mile  wide,  in  places  fully  ten  miles  inland.  Here 
and  there  tall  melancholy  pandanus  trees  stood  black 
and  weird  against  the  livid  sky,  and  at  rare  intervals 
a  few  cocoanut  palms  lifted  their  plumy  heads  eighty 
feet  above  the  water. 

"Shows  we're  getting  near  a  village,"  commented 
our  captain.  "  There  are  never  any  cocoanuts,  unless 
where  the  people  have  planted  them." 

The  words  were  scarcely  out  of  his  mouth  when  a 
loud  yell  tore  the  murky  air,  and  round  a  bend  of  the 
river  rushed  three  large  canoes,  each  containing  about 
twenty  men,  paddling  at  a  rate  of  speed  that  was 
simply  amazing.  The  men  wore  no  clothes,  but  their 
taste  in  ornament  was  certainly  striking.  Every  one  of 
them  had  a  magnificent  feather  headdress,  worn  like  a 
halo,and  made  of  paradise-bird  tails,  cassowary  feathers, 
parrot  feathers — all  vividly  coloured  by  nature  in 
scarlet,  pink,  blue,  green,  orange,  and  snowy  white. 
Necklaces  of  dogs'  teeth  adorned  most  of  these  war- 
riors, and  armlets  of  white  shell,  bands  of  scarlet 
leaves  and  green  or  white  grasses,  strings  and  strips 
of  many-coloured  bark,  added  to  the  general  effect  of 
full  dress.  The  natural  expression  of  these  river 
gentry  was  wild  and  fierce  enough,  but  they  had 
further  emphasised  it,  to  the  best  of  their  ability,  by 
painting  nose,  forehead,  and  cheeks  in  crimson  stripes, 
and  sticking  a  sort  of  white  pencil  or  shell,  with 
pointed  ends,  through  the  septum  of  the  nose,  so  that 
the  ornament  projected  on  each  side,  and  gave  the 
wearer  a  singular  resemblance  to  a  tusked  wild  boar. 


PURARI    PADDLERS  127 

There  were  some  spears  in  the  boats  ;  there  may  have 
been  arrows  also,  but  no  firearms,  which,  happily  for 
the  white  resident,  the  Papuan  docs  not  possess. 

Both  then,  and  afterwards,  I  was  much  struck  with 
the  speed  and  skill  of  the  Purari  River  paddlers. 
Their  canoes  are  simply  a  large  hollowed  log,  without 
any  supporting  outrigger,  and  a  white  man  cannot 
keep  his  balance  in  one  for  a  second,  so  insecure  is  its 
hold  on  the  water.  The  natives,  however,  paddle 
them,  standing  up  in  the  canoe,  at  a  rate  that  would 
leave  many  a  racing  outrigger  far  behind.  Their 
time  is  magnificent,  and  the  sweep  of  the  paddles, 
plunging  in  and  out,  and  making  the  water  tairly 
boil  along  the  sides  of  the  long  light  log,  is  a  thing  to 
remember  for  the  rest  of  one's  life. 

The  men  in  the  canoes — sixty  or  thereabouts — 
greeted  our  appearance  with  yells  of  the  wildest 
excitement,  and  at  once  began  paddling  their  hardest 
to  overtake  the  steamer — which,  working  against  the 
fierce  current  right  in  the  middle  of  the  stream,  they 
did  in  a  few  minutes.  No  steamer  had  ever  been  up 
here  before,  and  very  few  boats  ;  the  men  hardly 
knew  what  our  arrival  might  portend,  and  certainly 
did  not  understand  the  significance  of  the  Union  Jack 
flying  at  our  masthead,  to  indicate  His  Excellency's 
presence  on  board.  However,  it  was  clear  that  they 
had  no  fears,  for  they  did  their  best  to  catch  up  the 
ship,  and  having  succeeded  in  doing  so,  took  a  tow 
with  the  utmost  enjoyment.  Thus  we  went  on  our 
way,   accompanied   by  the   yelling  crowd    ot   painted 


128  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

cannibals,  into  Maipua,  the  first  of  the  villages  we 
meant  to  visit. 

Even  in  Papua,  the  country  of  impossibilities,  the 
sight  of  Maipua  comes  with  a  shock  of  amazement. 
The  huge  rabis — or  men's  living-houses  and  devil- 
temples  in  one,  that  stand  out  in  inescapable  promi- 
nence along  both  sides  of  the  stream,  perplex  the 
mind  with  a  mist  of  nightmare  bewilderment.  It  is 
a  curiously  disturbing  thing  to  come  upon  something 
so  unlike  every  other  object  of  its  kind,  that  your 
mind  has  no  simile  to  offer,  no  past  experience  upon 
which  the  new  sensation  may  stand.  The  largest 
rabi  in  Maipua  is  fully  ninety  feet  in  height  and  four 
hundred  in  length.  Its  shape  cannot  be  described 
otherwise  than  by  suggesting  that  the  idea  may 
originally  have  come  from  the  form  of  an  alligator 
lying  full  length  and  open-jawed  on  the  bank.  The 
gable  end,  facing  the  river,  runs  up  into  an  immense 
horn  or  point,  the  sides  being  rounded  off  in  a  sweep 
that  shows  considerable  architectural  skill.  Asmal 
door  gives  access  to  the  interior.  In  front  of  every 
rabi  there  is  the  usual  Papuan  verandah,  built  high 
up  on  posts,  to  protect  the  inhabitants  of  the  house 
from  wandering  alligators. 

Smaller  houses,  all  built  in  the  same  style,  stood 
along  the  bank,  each  house  perched  high  on  piles  out 
of  the  swampy  mud.  The  Maipuan  lives  in  mud 
almost  as  much  as  an  alligator,  but  he  does  not  care  to 
sleep  in  it.  Logs  of  wood  lie  about  the  swampiest 
places,  where  the  youth  of  the  community  might  be 


ALLIGATORS  HAUNTS'  129 

in  danger  of  disappearing  altogether,  and  the  innumer- 
able small  creeks  and  inlets  that  seam  the  villages 
through  and  through  have  generally  a  crossway  log,  a 
moored  canoe,  or  even  a  light,  neat,  well-made  bridge 
to  convey  the  native  from  one  side  to  the  other.  As 
every  Papuan  of  the  coast  districts  can  swim  like  a 
shark,  the  precaution  is  a  significant  one.  Indeed, 
although  we  did  not  chance  to  see  any,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  these  swampy  places  swarm  with  alligators. 
The  piles  of  alligator  skulls  kept  as  trophies  in  the 
rabis  would  prove  this  if  nothing  else  did. 

Sometimes,  it  is  evident,  natives  do  brave  the 
dangers  of  the  river  so  far  as  to  swim  down  it  with 
the  current,  taking  their  chance  of  an  encounter  with 
the  great  grey  monsters  that  lurk  hidden  in  the  slime. 
A  Papuan  did  this  some  months  before  the  time  of 
our  visit.  He  belonged  to  a  tribe  living  some  dis- 
tance away,  and  when  the  people  of  Maipua  saw  his 
black,  frizzy  head  making  its  way  down  the  river  they 
went  out  in  their  canoes  to  see  who  it  mi^ht  be. 
Finding  he  was  a  stranger,  they  picked  him  out  of 
the  river,  and  promptly  ate  him  to  teach  him  not  to 
come  trespassing  in  their  waters. 

A  stroke  of  bad  luck  had  knocked  me  over  with 
temporary  sickness,  and  I  was  not  able  to  go  ashore 
with  the  rest  of  the  small  party  when  we  anchored  in 
Maipua  and  the  captain  proceeded  forth  to  do  his 
recruiting.  Lying  on  a  lounge  on  deck,  not  a  little 
feverish  and  with  the  mind  in  the  tense,  overstrung: 
state  that  a  high  temperature  brings,   I  watched  the 


I30  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

strange  sights  about  me  and  wondered  whether  it 
could  possibly  be  real.  The  sky  was  still  a  sulky 
purple  grey,  the  river  gleamed  like  tarnished  brass 
against  a  lowering  sunset,  the  gigantic  rabis  stood  up 
black  and  threatening.  The  party  from  the  steamer 
could  be  seen  ashore  standing  on  the  verandah  of  one 
of  the  houses  and  holding  negotiations  that  seemed 
likely  to  last  a  long  time  with  a  group  of  feathered 
and  painted  Maipuans.  In  the  stillness  of  the  almost 
deserted  ship  one  could  hear  from  far  away  the  deep, 
resounding  boom  of  a  native  chant — a  chant  with 
something  distinctly  warlike  in  its  tone  :  no  cheerful 
song  about  the  river  or  the  fishing  or  the  gardens, 
such  as  natives  used  to  while  away  their  idle  hours  all 
over  the  Pacific  lands,  but  a  loud,  long  yell,  broken 
at  regular  intervals,  coming  nearer  and  nearer  to 
the  ship,  and  sounding  stranger  and  fiercer  as  it 
approached.  At  last  it  came  under  the  bows,  and 
with  it  passed  by  a  sight  worth  going  many  hundred 
miles  to  see. 

Two  great  canoes  had  been  lashed  together  and 
connected  by  a  platform  of  canes  and  small  timber. 
They  were  decorated  with  a  perfect  forest  of  fresh 
green  palm  leaves  and  other  foliage,  so  that  the  whole 
structure  looked  like  a  floating  garden  drifting  down 
the  stream.  On  the  canoes  stood  a  score  or  two  of 
natives,  gorgeously  painted  and  feathered,  but  other- 
wise absolutely  unclad.  Their  feather  headdresses 
quivered  against  the  gloomy  sky ;  their  fierce  dark 
faces,  streaked  with  scarlet  and  tusked  with  the  nose- 


MAIPUA  131 

shell,  looked  half  beast-like,  half  devil-like  as  they 
chanted,  open-mouthed  and  swaying,  their  loud, 
monotonous  song.  In  the  centre  of  the  platform  lay 
a  trophy  of  some  kind,  so  much  decorated  with  leaves 
and  grasses  that  it  was  impossible  to  say  what  it  might 
he.  I  heard  later  that  it  was  a  newly-slaughtered 
pig,  and  saw  no  reason  to  doubt  the  fact;  but  it  was 
clear,  all  the  same,  that  pig  was  not  invariably  the 
centre  of  the  ceremony. 

In  fact,  I  looked  at  the  raft  with  peculiar  interest, 
since  it  seemed  very  probable  indeed,  from  the  elabo- 
ration of  the  whole  affair  and  the  warlike  demeanour 
of  the  men,  that  I  was  witnessing  a  cannibal  ceremony 
minus  the  corpse.  Natives  have  a  way  of  substitut- 
ing pig  for  man,  much  as  an  economical  housewife 
would  substitute  margarine  for  butter  on  occasions 
when  the  superior  article  would  prove  too  expensive. 
It  certainly  would  have  proved  very  expensive  for 
the  Maipuans  in  this  instance,  and  they  doubtless 
knew  the  fact. 

The  people  on  the  occasion  of  this  visit  were  sullen 
and  not  inclined  to  be  civil.  Maipua,  being  low  down 
in  the  delta,  had  been  seen  by  a  few  white  men, 
traders,  and  recruiters,  but  it  was  not  very  well  dis- 
posed towards  them.  White  visitors  interfere  with 
the  simple  sports  of  a  native  village  (such  as  tying  up 
a  captured  enemy  over  a  fire  and  roasting  him  alive) 
and  get  in  the  way  of  tribal  warfare  ;  and  Maipua  at 
this  time  was  scarcely  awake  to  the  fact  that  the  white 
man  possessed  many  things  it  was  extremely  desirable 


132  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

to  have.  The  people  were  not  actively  rude,  but 
they  followed  our  party  about  in  silence,  watching 
them  closely  with  sullen  stares,  and  kept  the  women 
out  of  sight — always  a  sign  of  hostility. 

The  captain  of  the  steamer  nevertheless  was  bent 
on   recruiting  some    of  the  unmarried   men   for  the 
eastern  plantations,  and  laboured  to  that  end  with  the 
utmost  industry.     He   used   to  go   into   one   of  the 
large  houses  inhabited  by  young  men  and  sit  down 
for  a  smoke.      By  and  by,  through  his  interpreter,  he 
would  ask  one  of  the  men  if  he  had  any  tobacco.  The 
man  would  acknowledge  rather  shamefacedly  that  he 
was  out  of  that  essential.     "  Poor  fellow !  "  the  cap- 
tain would  say,  "  I'll  give  you  some,"  and  hand  him 
over  a  few  sticks.     Then  he  remarked  casually  that 
the  boys  who  worked  on  the  plantations  had  an  allow- 
ance of  so  many  sticks  a  week.     By  and  by  he  began 
again.    "  Got  a  tomahawk  .?  "    No,  the  man  explained, 
there  were  only  half  a  dozen  in  the  town,  and  they 
were  very  valuable  things  indeed ;  he  did  not  hope  to 
possess  one.     "  Got  a  calico  ?  "  (waist-cloth).     No,  the 
man  hadn't  that  ;  he  had  only  a  garment  of  bark.   By 
this  time  he  was  beginning  to  feel  very  low  in  his 
mind;    but    the   relentless   captain   went   on.     "Got 
fish-hook .'' "     No,  the  man  did  not  own  such  a  trea- 
sure,   invaluable    though    it   was  to   a    river  native. 
Then  would  come  the  crucial  question,  "Got  a  wife.'*" 
The  Maipuan  would  nearly  shed  tears  at  this.     How 
could  a  man  without  so  much  as  a  scrap  of  calico  of 
his  own  afford  to  buy  a  wife  .'' 


LABOUR   RECRUITING  133 

"  I  tell  you  what,"  the  captain  would  say,  struck  by 
a  new  and  brilliant  idea,  "  you  come  away  with  me 
and  go  to  work  for  a  year  on  the  white  men's  planta- 
tions. You  plant  cocoanut,  you  cut  down  tree,  all 
the  same  as  you  do  here.  You  get  plenty-plenty 
tucker,  meat  all  the  days,  biscuit,  rice,  tea,  plenty 
tobacco.  By  and  by  you  go  back  Maipua,  you  take 
calico,  fish-hooks,  tomahawks,  beads,  knives  ;  you 
big  man  ;  you  buy  wife." 

Money  was  not  mentioned,  as  the  Maipuan 
scarcely  understands  the  value  of  coin,  and  prefers 
to  think  in  concrete  terms.  The  prospect  proved 
attractive  to  a  good  many,  and  there  was  some  ani- 
mated talking  among  the  young  men.  "  How  many 
moons  till  we  get  the  goods  .''  "  was  the  next  question. 
The  captain  had  come  prepared  with  a  knotted  string, 
which  he  produced.  It  had  twelve  knots,  and  each, 
he  explained,  represented  a  moon. 

The  matter  stayed  there  till  the  next  day,  as  we 
meant  to  stop  overnight.  Till  morning  we  lay  in 
mid-stream,  separated  by  only  a  narrow  channel  of 
water  from  two  thousand  covetous  and  bloodthirsty 
savages,  who  valued  the  trade  goods  stored  in  our 
hold  much  as  the  crew  of  one  of  Drake's  caravels 
would  have  valued  the  contents  of  a  Spanish  treasure 
ship  on  its  way  home  from  Eldorado — and  who  cer- 
tainly would  not  have  had  the  slightest  scruple  in 
spearing  and  eating  every  one  of  our  little  party  ot 
ten  or  eleven  whites  if  they  had  only  known  that 
we  were  practically  unarmed,  and  that  the  mysterious 


134  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

smoke-breathing  monster  which  had  brought  us  to 
their  town  was  no  more  to  be  feared  than  a  whale- 
boat.  But  they  did  not  know  ;  therein  lay  our 
safety. 

Next  morning  the  captain  went  ashore  again  with 
the  rest  of  the  whites.  I  was  obliged  to  stay  on 
board,  being  still  on  the  sick-list.  Lying  on  my 
lounge  on  deck,  the  ship  very  still,  with  only  one  or 
two  of  the  crew  left  in  charge,  I  took  a  photograph 
or  two,  and  watched  the  canoes  passing  timorously  up 
and  down  beside  the  steamer.  They  were  not  angels, 
these  Purari  folk,  and  they  did  not  look  angelic. 
None  too  lovely  to  begin  with  ;  by  the  time  they 
had  painted  and  feathered  themselves,  thrust  the 
hideous  white  tusk  through  their  noses,  and  tilled 
their  mouths  with  chewed  betel-nut,  that  looked 
exactly  like  blood,  staining  lips  and  teeth  a  hideous 
crimson,  they  were  as  devilish-looking  a  set  of  gentry 
as  you  might  find  in  a  year's  wanderings. 

The  captain  came  on  board  later  in  the  day  with 
a  score  or  two  of  Maipuans,  half-scared,  half-excited, 
but  quite  determined  to  go  with  the  white  men  and 
earn  the  goods  that  were  to  make  them  so  important 
in  their  village.  Not  one  of  these  untamed  savages 
but  would  have  to  be  "  signed  on  "  by  a  magistrate, 
according  to  the  laws  of  the  country,  before  he  could 
be  set  to  work.  It  sounded  a  little  absurd,  but  all 
the  regulations  of  the  Native  Labour  Ordinance 
have  been  framed  with  the  view  of  preventing  in- 
justice between  employer  and  employ^,  and  they  are 


PLANTATION  WAGES  135 

all  based  upon  good  reasons.  The  plantation  hand 
in  Papua  knows  before  he  signs  his  agreement  just 
what  he  is  doing,  how  long  his  engagement  is  to  last 
(it  cannot  in  any  case  be  more  than  three  years),  what 
wages  he  is  to  get,  and  how  and  when  he  will  reach 
his  home  again.  The  employer  is  obliged  to  feed  him 
on  a  liberal  scale,  give  him  blanket,  mosquito  net, 
tinware  for  his  food,  and  a  proper  house  to  sleep  in. 
No  employer  or  overseer  is  allowed  to  strike  a  boy  in 
punishment  of  any  neglect  of  duty — nor  on  any  other 
occasion,  unless  in  self-defence.  Punishment  on  a 
plantation  means  deprivation  of  some  luxury,  a  little 
extra  work,  or  (if  the  labourer  leaves  before  the  end 
of  his  engagement)  a  compulsory  visit  to  a  magis- 
trate, who  will  look  into  the  matter,  and  if  he  is 
satisfied  that  there  has  been  no  just  cause  of  com- 
plaint on  the  boy's  part,  will  sentence  him  to  a  short 
term  of  imprisonment  in  jail. 

Wages  are  usually  ten  shillings  a  month,  and  are 
paid  at  the  end  of  the  engagement.  They  must  be 
handed  to  the  labourer  in  the  presence  of  a  magis- 
trate, and  a  minor  official  has  to  satisfy  the  magistrate 
and  himself  that  the  local  store  does  not  cheat  the 
boy  of  any  value  for  his  money.  In  the  Government 
offices  are  to  be  found  huge  piles  of  papers  dealing 
with  the  purchases  made  by  hundreds  of  boys  at  a 
time  when  being  paid  off.  So  many  fish-hooks,  so 
many  strings  of  beads,  so  many  tomahawks  and 
knives,  so  many  yards  of  calico,  etc.  etc. — even,  in 
some  cases,  so  many  bars  of  soap  1     The  Papuan  is 


136  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

usually  much  impressed  with  the  wonderful  powers 
of  soap  when  he  sees  it  for  the  first  time,  and  is  quite 
anxious  to  introduce  it  to  the  ignorant  people  who 
have  remained  at  home  in  the  village. 

At  the  end  of  his  engagement  the  employer  has  to 
return  every  man  to  his  own  home,  even  if  it  is  four 
or  five  hundred  miles  away.  This  is  undertaken  at 
so  much  per  head  by  the  recruiting  schooners,  and  is 
not  a  serious  expense.  If  by  any  chance  the  native 
should  have  died  during  his  engagement,  the  em- 
ployer is  obliged  by  law  to  send  the  amount  of  his 
wages,  in  cash  or  goods,  to  the  man's  relations  in 
his  native  village. 

A  man  who  has  once  been  on  the  plantations  gene- 
rally goes  back  again,  sooner  or  later.  He  may  be 
glad  to  see  his  own  people  for  a  while,  and  to  sink 
down  into  the  ways  of  savagery  for  a  certain  time. 
But  the  leaven  of  civilisation  works.  He  has  learned 
to  want  many  things  that  he  cannot  have  in  his  own 
cannibal  village  ;  he  has  acquired  a  taste  for  good  and 
regular  food  and  undisturbed  sleep — two  blessings 
that  are  not  to  be  found  in  native  villages — and  he 
grows  impatient  with  the  tiresome  stone  axes  and 
adzes,  the  tedious  fish-spearing,  the  bamboo  knives 
that  will  only  make  one  cut  before  they  have  to  be 
re-edged.  After  handling  European  tools  for  a  year 
or  more  it  is  disconcerting  to  be  dropped  back  into 
the  Stone  Age.  And  when  you  are  accustomed  to  all 
the  glories  of  red  calico  tunics,  leather  belts,  and 
shirts    to   wear  v/hen   the  sea-breeze  blows  wet   and 


COUNTRY  OF   THE    IMPOSSIBLE     137 

chilly,  it  is  hard  to  go  back  to  scraps  of  bark  and 
tufts  of  leaves.  The  goods  brought  from  the  planta- 
tion are  shared  out  all  over  the  district,  and  do  not 
last  long.  The  labourer  finds  himself  much  where 
he  was  before  long — only  discontented,  which  he 
never  used  to  be.  .  .  .  By  and  by  the  recruiter 
comes  along  again,  and  the  first  boy  he  gets  is  the  very 
one  who  was  so  glad  to  get  home  a  few  months  ago. 

One  might  reasonably  ask.  Is  there  no  risk  to  the 
planter  in  filling  up  his  plantation  with  ferocious  man- 
eaters  miles  and  days  away  from  the  nearest  white 
settlement .''  .  .  .1  have  said  before  that  Papua  is 
the  country  of  the  Impossible.  This  is  another  of 
its  impossibilities.  It  is  perfectly  safe,  as  all  ex- 
perience proves.  The  Papuan  cannibal,  taken  away 
from  his  own  village,  set  to  work  in  a  district  of 
which  he  knows  nothing,  among  men  who  are  largely 
strangers  to  him,  seems  to  change  his  nature  alto- 
gether for  the  time  being.  There  are  occasional 
fights  among  the  plantation  hands  themselves,  but 
nothing  serious  as  a  rule.  Attacks  on  the  white 
masters  are  practically  unknown.  It  is  hard  to  say 
why  this  is  the  case,  while  in  the  neighbouring 
Solomon  Islands  and  in  the  New  Hebrides  the  planter 
often  runs  serious  risk  from  his  men,  but  the  fact  is 
one  that  cannot  be  denied.  Something  is  probably 
due  to  the  excellent  treatment  of  the  labourer  which 
the  law  enforces  in  the  one  case  and  merely  assumes 
in  the  other,  but  this  hardly  accounts  in  full  for  the 
extraordinary  fact  that  one  white  man  can  live  alone 


138  THE   NEW   NEW  GUINEA 

among  five  hundred  natives,  mostly  cannibal,  order 
them  about,  keep  them  hard  at  work,  let  them  see 
that  he  is  in  possession  of  countless  stores  of  the  very 
treasures  for  which  they  are  painfully  labouring,  and 
yet  remain  perfectly  safe  in  their  midst.  The  prestige 
of  the  Government  and  the  fear  of  its  displeasure 
are  both  alike  strong  in  Papua,  but  that  again  is 
scarcely  enough  to  account  for  the  astonishing  tame- 
ness  of  the  man-eater  away  from  his  home.  He  is 
not  tame  in  his  home,  and  not  friendly  to  the  white 
either  ;  until  within  the  last  two  years  it  was  almost 
impossible  for  any  white  man  to  venture  into  the 
western  river  districts  except  at  the  imminent  risk  of 
his  life  ;  and  yet,  at  that  very  time,  men  who  came 
from  the  hostile  country  made  excellent  workers. 
One  must  be  content  to  "give  it  up,"  as  one  gives 
up  many  problems  in  this  country  of  living  riddles. 

The  men  we  took  on  board  at  Maipua  and  later 
amounted  to  over  a  hundred.  The  little  ship  was 
packed  to  overflowing  with  them.  They  might  have 
risen  any  night  and  massacred  the  whole  of  the 
whites  and  looted  the  ship,  but  they  did  not,  and  we 
knew  that  they  would  not.  1  do  not  know  why  we 
knew.  They  might  conceivably  have  attacked  us  on 
shore,  when  we  should  have  been  still  more  at  their 
mercy — again,  I  do  not  know  why.  The  amount  of 
ignorance  that  I  accumulated  on  that  journey  through 
the  delta  would  fill  three  volumes,  and  I  never  ran 
out  of  it  all  the  time  I  remained  in  the  country  after- 
wards. 


A   DELTA   VILLAGE  139 

Next  day  we  got  away  from  Maipua.  I  had  not 
seen  anything  on  shore,  not  even  the  interior  of  one 
of  the  great  rabis,  but  another  visit,  paid  a  year  later, 
made  up  for  the  deprivation.  On  this  occasion  I 
went  ashore  with  the  Government  party,  who  had 
come  up  from  the  Merrie  Englafid  in  a  steam-launch, 
and  saw  the  principal  rabis.  The  change  that  had 
taken  place  during  the  course  of  the  year  was  very 
notable.  Instead  of  sulking  sullenly  apart  and  watch- 
ing us  with  suspicion,  the  Maipuans  rushed  to  meet 
the  launch,  helped  us  by  the  muddy  river  bank, 
seized  any  parcels  we  were  carrying,  insisted  on 
relieving  us  of  their  weight,  and  shook  hands  with 
us  by  the  score.  When  I  broke  through  a  rickety 
bridge  and  got  covered  with  mud  half  a  dozen  man- 
eaters  "  ran  to  help  me  when  I  fell,"  pulled  me  out 
on  to  the  dry  land  (what  there  was  of  it)  and  pains- 
takingly cleaned  my  skirt  with  grass  and  water.  The 
village  was  really  transformed.  Though  still  un- 
civilised in  other  ways,  we  heard  that  they  had 
definitely  given  up  cannibalism,  and  that  they  were 
rapidly  learning  the  use  of  white  men's  tools.  They 
made  no  objection  to  letting  anyone  enter  the  rabis, 
and,  as  I  was  most  anxious  to  see  one,  I  followed  with 
the  Government  party  along  the  river  bank  to  the 
platform  of  one  of  the  largest. 

Walking  about  in  a  Purari  delta  village  is  not  an 
easy  performance.  The  whole  town  is  built  in  the 
mud — black,  thick,  ill-smelling  slime,  half  land  and 
half  water,  cut  up  by  numberless  canals  and  streams 


I40  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

of  all  sizes.  The  houses,  made  of  bark  and  sticks, 
are  set  upon  high  piles,  and  connected  with  each  other 
by  fallen  logs  laid  across  the  worst  of  the  quagmires, 
and  by  a  nightmare  kind  of  bridge  constructed  of 
fragile  sticks,  which  are  placed  in  careless  handfuls 
upon  tall,  trembling  supports  eight  or  nine  feet  high. 
These  structures  have  no  handrail  or  guard  of  any 
kind,  and  if  you  fall  off  one  when  nobody  is  about 
you  may  very  well  be  suffocated  in  the  slime  below. 
It  is  said — with  how  much  truth  I  cannot  tell — that 
many  of  the  natives  of  the  Purari  delta  can  support 
themselves  safely  in  this  slime  by  a  kind  of  half- 
swimming,  half-paddling  motion,  and  can  even  get 
about  in  it,  like  mud-turtles.  We  did  not  see  anyone 
performing  the  feat ;  but  no  doubt  the  native  prefers 
a  bridge  when  it  is  to  be  had. 

The  outside  platform  of  the  rabi  was  very  wide 
and  very  rickety  indeed,  and  you  could  plainly  see  the 
black,  deep  mud  below  through  the  gaps  between  the 
twigs.  Our  booted  and  heavily-moving  party  (all 
white  people  seem  to  move  heavily  and  slowly  com- 
pared to  the  light-footed,  naked  natives)  came  very 
near  breaking  through  once  or  twice,  but  we  got 
safely  to  the  entrance  of  the  rabi  and  entered, 
one  at  least  of  the  party  full  of  excitement  and 
anticipation. 

Very  little  indeed  has  been  known  about  these  rabis 
in  the  past,  and  even  on  the  occasion  of  our  second 
visit  we  were  sure  that  not  twenty  white  men  had 
seen  before  us  what  we  were  seeing  that  day.     No 


A    MAIPUA    RABI  141 

white   woman    had   ever   been    inside   the   rabis,    but 
there  seemed  to  be  no  objection  to  my  entering. 

Coming  out  of  the  dull  glare  and  heat  outside,  the 
dark  coolness  of  the  rabi  made  one  draw  a  breath  of 
relief.  There  is  no  heat  in  Papua  like  the  black  heat 
of  the  delta  country — glaring  yet  gloomy  sky  ;  inky 
mud,  warm  as  a  witch's  cauldron  ;  palms  and  lianas 
bright  with  an  unwholesomely  vivid  green,  void  of 
refreshment — it  seems  as  if  there  were  not  a  single 
spot  upon  which  the  eye  could  rest  without  strain. 
Under  the  huge  arching  roof  of  the  rabi,  however, 
there  was  a  pleasant  dark-brown  light,  and  something 
like  a  breath  of  wind  seemed  to  filter  through  the 
long  arcade  in  front  of  us  as  we  stood  in  the  outer- 
most division  looking  at  the  strange  treasure  of  the 
Maipuans. 

The  photograph  which  I  was  fortunate  enough  to 
obtain  on  this  occasion  will  give  some  idea  of  the 
extraordinary  appearance  of  the  building.  It  was 
partitioned  off  into  four  separate  sanctuaries,  the 
three  first  being  divided  from  each  other  by  rows  of 
wooden  pillars.  The  outermost  was  the  largest  and 
highest;  as  the  building  went  back  it  became  narrower 
and  lower,  and  each  division  lessened  accordingly. 
The  first  contained  alligator  skulls  set  in  neat  rows 
on  the  ground  ;  pigs'  jaws  hung  in  strings  down  the 
pillars  ;  wooden  shields  carved  into  representations  of 
nightmare  faces — faces  crab-like,  pig-like,  devilish, 
bogy,  goblin,  comic,  or  fierce.  The  gargoyles  of 
Notre  Dame  would  seem   banal   compared  with   the 


142  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

imagination  of  the  Purari  artist.  I  never  saw  any- 
thing like  it,  except  in  some  of  Aubrey  Beardsley's 
drawings.  Indeed,  an  artist  of  the  decadent  type 
would  find  himself  thoroughly  in  sympathy  with  the 
Purari  country  in  general.  It  is  very  much  like  the 
sort  of  thing  an  unusually  morbid  impressionist 
painter  would  create  after  a  course  of  reading  selected 
from  Poe,  De  Quincey,  and  the  once  notorious 
Yellow  Book. 

Besides  the  shields  there  were  a  few  spears — wood, 
with  long  barbed  points — and  a  number  of  belts 
made  of  bark  ;  also  some  plaited  baskets,  evidently 
the  property  of  the  men  who  were  lounging  about  on 
the  floor  of  the  first  division.  We  knew  tliat  strings 
of  human  skulls  generally  decorated  the  posts  of  the 
rabi,  as  they  had  been  seen  on  the  occasion  of  the 
former  visit ;  but  the  Maipuans  had  evidently  re- 
moved them  when  they  heard  the  steam-launch 
coming,  out  of  a  well-bred  reluctance  to  shock  our 
feelings.  Between  the  two  visits  there  had  been  a 
punitive  expedition  into  the  delta  to  warn  another 
tribe  against  chasing  white  men  and  threatening  to 
eat  them,  and  the  manners  of  the  various  towns  had 
undergone  a  wonderful  improvement  since  then, 
although  no  one  had  been  killed  in  punishment  for 
the  outrage.  The  Maipuan  people,  at  all  events, 
fully  recognised  the  power  of  the  Government,  and 
were  almost  effusively  anxious  to  curry  favour  with 
its  representatives. 

The  second  division  of  the  rabi  contained   much 


> 


THE   CANNIBAL    TE.Ml'LE 


To  face  page  142. 


FOUR   DRAGONS  143 

the  same  things  as  the  first,  and  so  did  the  third,  but 
in  each  division  the  treasures  were  larger  and  better 
selected — the  alligator  skulls  bigger,  the  pig  jaws 
more  numerous,  the  shields  and  weapons  handsomer. 
The  fourth  division  we  could  not  see  into,  as  it  was 
shut  off  by  long  drooping  curtains  of  fine  fibre  ;  but 
we  approached  it  with  extreme  interest  and  curiosity. 
The    whole    rabi    seemed    designed    with   a   view    of 

D 

gradually  leading  up  to  and  enhancing  something  .  .  . 
what  ^ 

We  dived  through  the  curtains,  and  saw. 

We  were  standing  in  a  little  innermost  room  at  the 
very  end  of  the  immense  length  and  height  of  the 
rabi.  Here  the  roof  sloped  down  low,  and  the  sun 
came  in  through  the  slats  of  the  branchwork  at  the 
back.  We  could  see  the  contents  of  the  room  quite 
clearly,  and  they  were  .-.   . 

Four  dragons  ! 

Yes,  it  was  certainly  worth  the  elaborate  prepara- 
tion that  led  up  to  the  surprise.  Whatever  one 
might  guess  as  to  the  contents  of  that  inner  shrine — 
that  Unholy  of  Unholies — one  was  not  likely  to  have 
guessed  dragons.  And  yet  there  they  were,  as  large 
as  life,  and  quite  as  unnatural  as  anything  ever  seen 
in  the  pictures  of  a  tale-book  about  goblins  and  genii. 
They  had  a  certain  resemblance  to  alligators,  a  slight 
suggestion  of  shark  ;  but  dragons  they  were  in  all 
essentials.  They  were  made  of  plaited  wickerwork, 
and  seemed  about  nine  feet  long.  They  had  tapering 
tails   and  small  sprawling  feet.     They  had  large  red 


144  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

eyes,  made  of  the  rind  of  some  fruit,  and  immense 
gaping  mouths  which  could  easily  have  engulfed  a 
man.  All  in  all,  they  were  bogies  of  a  very  high 
class,  and  evidently  held  in  awe  as  such,  for  only  one 
man  entered  into  the  inner  shrine  with  the  whites  to 
look  upon  them,  and  he  had  apparently  an  official 
connection  of  some  kind  with  the  mysteries  of  the 
rabi. 

It  is  extremely  difficult  to  get  at  the  meaning  or 
use  of  these  images,  as  the  natives  are  very  shy  of 
talking  about  them,  and  take  refuge  in  obvious  lies  if 
too  closely  questioned.  This  much  is  known,  that 
they  are  in  use  as  oracles,  being  consulted  before  the 
natives  go  out  to  hunt.  The  Governor  questioned 
our  guide  through  an  interpreter,  and  was  told  that 
the  Ukiaravi  tribe  had  consulted  their  images  before 
going  out  to  chase  the  white  man  some  months 
before,  and  that  the  images  told  them  they  would 
have  bad  luck,  but  they  had  gone  all  the  same. 
They  themselves  had  always  consulted  these  figures 
before  going  out  to  hunt  wild  pig,  in  order  to  know 
what  success  they  would  have.  Of  course  they  never 
hunted  anything  but  pig  ;  it  was  only  the  bad  people 
of  Ukiaravi  who  hunted  men  (self-righteously). 

How  did  the  images  answer  .'' 

By  tilting  on  their  feet — so  many  raps  for  yes,  so 
many  for  no,  the  guide  informed  us. 

(Spirit-rapping  of  the  good  old  pattern  among  the 
Purari  cannibals  ! — si  je  my  attendais  I) 

He  told  us  further  that  when  the  men  came  home 


SECRET   OF   THE   RABI  145 

from  hunting  with  a  load  of  pig  they  brought  out  the 
images  on  the  platform  in  front  of  the  rabi  and  offered 
the  pig  to  them.  That  "  excellent-substitute-for-the- 
real-article  "  idea  occurred  to  me  again.  The  Purari 
mind  is  transparent  enough  at  some  times,  though  at 
others  dense  and  dark  as  the  mud  of  the  swamps  that 
breed  it. 

We  had  heard  dim  rumours  of  other  uses  for  the 
images — ceremonies  in  which  a  man,  hidden  inside 
the  wicker  body,  feigned  to  devour  the  victim  of  a 
cannibal  feast,  stabbing  him  as  he  was  put  into  the 
mouth  of  the  figure.  But  questions  about  cannibal 
ceremonies  may  as  well  be  left  unasked,  for  it  is 
impossible  to  get  replies.  All  cannibals  are  shy  and 
secretive  about  their  anthropophagic  practices,  and 
take  refuge  from  inquiry  in  blank  innocence  or  the 
inevitable  pig.  The  figures  were  evidently  designed 
to  hold  a  man,  but  when  or  for  what  purpose  we 
could  only  guess. 

A  good  deal  impressed,  we  left  the  inner  chamber 
and  began  the  long  walk  back  up  the  rabi  to  the 
platform.  The  floor  was  made  of  split  palm  sheaths, 
or  something  similar,  and  was  very  elastic,  and  not  at 
all  secure.  The  walls,  however,  were  well  built  of 
small  parallel  branches  and  split  logs,  and  the  roof 
was  sloped  and  narrowed  with  notable  skill.  Alto- 
gether the  rabi  was  fully  as  remarkable  inside  as  out, 
and  that  was  saying  much. 

The  life  of  a  Purari  village  centres  round  the 
rabi,  which  seems  to  be  used  partly  as  a  club,  partly 

L 


146  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

as  a  devil-temple.  The  unmarried  men  all  sleep  in 
it,  and  spend  much  of  their  time  in  it.  All  the  men 
of  the  town  join  in  the  ceremonies  that  take  place 
there  from  time  to  time,  but  what  these  are  no  white 
man  knows.  Few  whites  have  visited  the  district, 
and  none  have  had  an  opportunity  of  unravelling  the 
secrets  of  the  rabi.  The  natives  guard  its  privacy- 
most  jealously  ;  Maipua  is  the  only  town  where 
strangers  have  been  willingly  admitted  into  the 
interior  of  the  building  and  shown  the  images,  and 
even  in  Maipua  the  ceremonial  side  of  the  temples  is 
kept  rigidly  secret.  In  Ukiaravi  a  rabi  was  destroyed 
by  the  Government  to  punish  the  natives  for  attempt- 
ing an  attack  upon  two  harmless  white  traders,  and 
the  images  were  confiscated.  I  was  therefore  able  to 
secure  a  photograph  of  two  of  these  figures,  taken  at 
Port  Moresby.  They  are  quite  unique  as  curios,  since 
no  other  specimens  have  ever  been  obtained,  and 
none  could  be  obtained  unless  under  similar  circum- 
stances. No  village  would  sell  its  images  for  any 
money  that  could  be  offered. 

In  other  parts  of  the  Gulf  of  Papua  there  are 
buildings  somewhat  resembling  these  rabis,  though 
less  remarkable.  The  Resident  Magistrates  say  that 
the  rabi,  in  the  coast  towns,  is  really  a  sort  of  savage 
university,  where  the  boys  of  the  tribe  are  brought 
up,  taught  the  use  of  weapons,  and  initiated  into  the 
ceremonies  of  the  tribe  by  the  old  men.  They  spend 
several  years  undergoing  this  educational  course.  A 
man  who  has  not  undergone  the  rabi  training  is  held 


RIVER    MAZES  147 

of  small  account  by  his  fellows  and  finds  difficulty  in 
getting  a  wife.  It  is  a  curious  point  that  children  of 
illegitimate  parentage  are  not  admitted. 

In  all  probability  the  Purari  River  rabi  has  much 
in  common  with  these.  The  fiercer  nature  of  the 
people,  however,  no  doubt  introduces  more  of  the 
murderous  and  man-eating  element  into  the  cere- 
monies of  the  rabi  than  obtains  along  the  open  and 
better  known  districts  of  the  coast. 

We  steamed  away  from  Maipua  on  the  occasion 
of  our  first  visit  with  a  large  number  of  untamed 
savages,  and  made  our  way  to  Kairu — -or  tried  to. 

But  in  the  Purari  delta  man  proposes  and  the 
river  channels  do  the  disposing.  Nobody  really 
knows  this  marvellous  tangle  of  great  rivers,  narrow 
deep  channels,  broad  shallow  creeks,  sago  swamps, 
and  mangrove  and  nipa  country,  half  land,  half  water. 
The  chart  is  a  mockery  when  you  really  want  to  find 
your  way  about.  It  is  the  most  amazing  piece  of 
geography  in  the  world.  Your  steamer  butts  her 
way  solidly  up  against  the  current  of  a  river  the  size 
of  the  Mississippi  for  half  a  dozen  miles,  takes  a 
crosscut  down  a  creek  at  right  angles  to  her  former 
course,  and  plunges  out  into  another  river  about  the 
size  of  the  Upper  Nile  this  time,  running  parallel  to 
the  last,  and  not  a  hundred  yards  from  it.  This  is 
not  the  direction  for  our  villages,  however,  so  we 
take  another  crosscut  and  strike  yet  another  great 
river  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  mile  wide  and  four  or  five 
fathoms  deep.     It  branches  off  by  and  by  into  two 


148  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

large  rivers,  each  big  and  deep  enough  to  malce  the 
fortune  of  an  Australian  State.  We  choose  a  branch 
at  random  and  proceed  along  it  for  the  greater  part 
of  the  day,  the  Papuan  leadsman  throwing  the  lead 
constantly  as  we  go  and  calling  out  the  depth,  which 
is  rather  too  variable  to  be  safe.  What  a  river  !  An 
unknown  and  unnamed  branch  of  the  great  Purari, 
but  yet  a  mighty  flood,  bearing  along  huge  logs  like 
straws,  taking  our  8o-ton  steamer  in  perfect  safety, 
and  showing  here  and  there  a  depth  of  as  much  as 
seven  fathoms.  A  wonderful  but  a  melancholy  place  ; 
a  land  where  no  man  lives,  where  it  seems  that  no 
man  has  come  since  the  beginning  of  the  world. 
Thirty,  forty,  fifty  miles  we  must  have  gone,  and 
nothing  stirs  on  those  green  burning  banks  but  the 
stalking  crane,  no  sound  but  the  harsh  cry  of  the 
cockatoo  breaks  the  deathly  stillness  of  the  dense, 
swamp-nourished  bush.  All  the  criminals  of  all 
the  world  might  hide  here  and  never  fear  discovery 
— an  invading  army  might  lose  or  conceal  itself  and 
never  have  its  presence  so  much  as  suspected.  Yet 
if  the  place  is  desolate,  it  is  not  barren.  The  endless 
groves  of  nipa  palm  bear  eatable  if  not  attractive 
fruits,  and  the  sago  palm  lines  the  banks  with 
veritable  forests,  each  trunk  a  storehouse  of  food  for 
a  family  during  almost  a  year.  Even  the  great  popu- 
lation of  the  delta — a  population  which  has  never 
been  more  than  guessed  at  because  of  the  careful 
concealment  of  most  village  sites — cannot  use  one 
tithe  of  the  supply  of  this  most  valuable  food.     No 


MAKING   SAGO 


To  face  page  148. 


KAIRU  149 

one  who  has  seen  the  river  people — stout,  muscular, 
well  nourished,  and  fed  from  babyhood  almost  entirely 
on  the  starchy  food  washed  from  the  inner  pith  of 
the  sago  palm — can  doubt  its  value  as  a  food. 

Why  has  no  attempt  been  made  to  use  these 
forests  of  sago  commercially  ?  Difficulty  of  transport 
is  the  chief  reason.  They  are  "  a  long  way  from 
anywhere,"  and  white  men  could  not  live  in  the 
deadly  swamps  where  the  tree  most  flourishes.  A 
good  deal  might  be  done  by  cutting  along  the  outer 
edge  of  the  bank,  but,  with  so  many  other  industries 
waiting  to  be  exploited,  the  turn  of  the  sago  palm  is 
not  likely  to  come  for  a  long  day  yet.  Sago,  pre- 
pared and  cleaned,  can  be  bought  in  large  rolls  in 
many  parts  of  Papua  at  about  a  halfpenny  a  pound.  It 
is  not  at  all  like  the  sago  of  the  shops,  cither  in 
appearance  or  flavour,  being  dark  reddish-brown  in 
colour  and  of  a  glutinous,  jelly-like  substance.  Its 
nourishing  qualities,  however,  for  the  old,  the  sick, 
and  children  are  unrivalled. 

We  found  Kairu,  I  do  not  know  how,  and  I  am 
sure  the  captain  did  not  know  how  himself.  It  was 
certainly  worth  finding.  Though  not  so  imposing  as 
Maipua,  it  was  far  prettier.  The  houses  of  Kairu  are 
built  more  in  the  water  than  in  the  mud,  and  over- 
hang the  deep  green  river  in  quite  a  Venetian  manner. 
There  were  many  little  side  canals  running  in  and  out 
among  the  houses,  with  wickerwork  verandahs  look- 
ing down  upon  them  and  trails  of  leafy  liana  netted 
across  their  cool  arcades.    There  were  bridges,  too,  of 


I50  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

a  better  pattern  than  the  Maipuan  type,  crossing  these 
narrow  rivers — in  fact,  the  whole  town  (a  large  one, 
with  a  population  running  into  thousands)  may  fairly 
be  described  as  the  Venice  of  the  Purari. 

It  gave  one's  mind  the  disconcerting  kind  of  jolt  with 
which  one  becomes  so  familiar  in  Papua  to  observe  in 
the  middle  of  this  poetic  prettiness  of  architecture  a 
solemn  row  of  cannibals  sitting  on  the  front  verandah 
of  every  large  house.  They  were  very  much  painted 
and  feathered  and  very  little  dressed ;  they  were  as  im- 
movable as  stone,  and  apparently  took  no  interest  at 
all  in  the  unheard-of  phenomenon  of  a  steamer.  We 
judged  them  to  be  sentries  of  some  kind — not  an 
unnecessary  precaution  in  this  part  of  Papua. 

Here  we  got  twenty  or  thirty  men,  and  some  bundles 
of  sago,  and  in  the  afternoon  proceeded  twenty  para- 
sangs — (I  beg  the  reader's  pardon) — we  left  Kairu  and 
went  a  few  miles  down  the  nearest  river,  and  then  got 
lost  again,  trying  up  wrong  creeks  and  rivers  that  led 
to  nothing.  The  current  in  the  narrower  rivers  was 
very  strong,  and  in  consequence  every  half-hour  or 
so  brought  a  warning  cry  from  the  helmsman,  "Look 
out  1  "  clearing  everybody  immediately  off  the  deck 
and  into  the  nearest  shelter,  while  the  ship  plunged 
her  violent  way  into  the  bank,  carrying  off  branches 
of  trees  wholesale  and  strewing  the  deck  with  frag- 
ments. After  she  had  been  backed  off  the  passengers 
would  come  out  again  and  begin  hunting  about  for 
insects,  which  always  came  on  board  in  thousands  on 
these  occasions.    Ants  of  every  kind  were  passed  over 


PRAYING  MANTIS  151 

as  uninteresting  (would  that  they  had  consented  to 
pass  us  over  in  like  fashion  !)  ;  grasshoppers  were 
common  ;  but  now  and  then  something  really  odd 
rewarded  our  search.  A  praying  mantis  was  one  of 
the  most  amusing.  It  was  a  brown  stick-like  creature 
some  three  inches  long,  with  four  ordinary  legs  and 
two  long  serrated  forelegs.  Every  now  and  then  it 
raised  itself  upright  in  a  kneeling  posture  and  held 
up  its  forelegs  devotionally  before  its  face.  This  pious 
action  was  always  followed  by  shrieks  of  laughter 
from  the  travellers.  Its  head,  perched  on  a  long 
slender  neck,  was  usually  drooped  on  one  side  in  a 
manner  suggesting  extreme  weariness  of  the  world  in 
general,  and  of  its  present  company  in  particular.  At 
times,  however,  especially  when  deluded  into  climbing 
an  endless  ladder  of  someone's  fingers,  presented  one 
after  the  other,  it  wakened  up  to  wrath  and  squared 
at  the  offender  fiercely,  challenging  him  to  come  on. 
If  the  challenge  passed  unnoticed,  it  made  a  fierce 
leap  at  his  face,  and  then,  without  having  inflicted 
any  damage  except  a  severe  blow  upon  itself,  it  would 
drop  back  into  its  languid  attitude  of  prayer  and 
seem  once  more  to  forget  the  world.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  this  attitude  of  prayer  is  its  way  of  catching 
smaller  insects,  which  mistake  the  immobile  creature 
for  a  piece  of  stick  and  fly  heedlessly  against  its  out- 
stretched arms. 

Another  insect  of  a  very  strange  appearance  came 
aboard  in  dozens  and  scores  during  this  part  of  the 
journey.     Most  of  us  had  an  idea  that  it  was  new  to 


152  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

science  (Papua  is  full  of  discoveries  for  the  entomolo- 
gist, as  we  all  knew),  but  no  one  could  say  for  certain. 
It  was  a  sort  of  rough  sketch  of  an  insect,  from  a 
quarter  to  half  an  inch  long,  looking  like  a  pinch  of 
pale  green  cotton  wool  oddly  fitted  out  with  two 
black  eyes  and  six  legs.  It  had  no  wings,  but  stalked 
or  skipped  according  to  its  mood.  On  its  back  was 
surely  the  oddest  appendage  ever  seen  on  an  insect — 
a  bird-like  tail,  fan-shaped  and  set  straight  up  in  the 
air.  The  tail  was  apparently  made  of  another  pinch 
of  cotton-wool,  white  this  time,  and  rather  carelessly 
stuck  into  place.  It  looked  exceedingly  like  a  minute 
green  peacock  with  a  white  tail  (four  of  its  legs  being 
inconspicuous),  and  the  conceit  of  its  aspect  and 
demeanour  as  it  strutted  along  the  backs  of  the  seats 
was  something  incredible.  No  one  in  Port  Moresby, 
we  afterwards  found,  had  ever  seen  or  heard  of  the 
curious  little  beast.  We  were  sorry  not  to  bring  any 
away,  but  at  the  time  no  good  method  of  killing 
or  preserving  them  seemed  to  suggest  itself  to 
anyone. 

That  night  we  went  aground  again,  rather  seriously, 
and  remained  fast  for  some  hours.  We  were  running 
in  the  dusk  across  a  huge  dim  lagoon  that  shone 
under  the  fading  sky  like  a  shield  of  tarnished  silver 
when  the  disaster  occurred,  and  the  banks  were  too 
far  away  to  give  us  any  assistance  in  getting  off.  For 
the  time  being  we  accepted  things  as  they  were, 
remembered  that  the  delta  was  all  tidal,  and  trusted 
to  the  flood  to  get  us  away.     Meanwhile  we  left  the 


THE    LIGHT   THAT    FAILED         153 

deck,  which  was  veiled  with  drifting  rain,  and  went 
down  to  dinner. 

Later  on,  the  rain  having  slackened  a  little,  we 
were  all  sitting  on  lounges  with  our  feet  tucked  up, 
talking  about  murders  and  crocodiles,  as  one  does  in 
New  Guinea,  when  somebody  remarked  that  we  were 
in  a  very  lonely  spot.  It  was  a  place  perfectly  un- 
known to  white  men,  and  it  looked  as  if  not  even  a 
native  had  been  there  since  the  creation  of  the  world. 
There  was  not  a  stir  on  the  whole  dim  face  of  the 
great  lagoon,  not  so  much  as  a  fish  leaping  under  the 
moonlight  ;  no  sound  but  the  pattering  of  the  desul- 
tory rain  on  the  deck.  It  felt  unpleasantly  as  if  the 
Day  of  Judgment  had  somehow  come  and  gone  in 
the  world  outside  without  our  knowledge,  leaving  us 
the  last  of  men  in  a  doomed  and  depopulated  world. 

Then,  while  we  were  talking  and  the  steward  was 
going  round  with  the  coffee,  somebody  exclaimed 
"  Look  1  " 

We  looked.  On  the  other  side  of  the  lagoon,  not 
more  than  a  furlong  or  so  away,  an  immense  fiery 
transparency  eighty  or  a  hundred  feet  high  reared 
itself  into  the  dark,  where  a  moment  before  had  been 
nothing  but  gloom.  It  was  shaped  like  a  pointed 
arch,  but  the  lower  part  was  hidden  by  thick  bush, 
and  we  could  not  see  exactly  where  it  rose. 

'*  A  rabi,  and  a  big  one,"  said  the  captain.  "  There 
must  be  a  town  quite  close." 

Not  a  sound  came  from  the  direction  of  the  great 
temple.     The  light  burned  steadily,  dim  and  red,  as 


154  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

though  filtered  through  some  semi-transparent  screen. 
A  huge  veil  of  mats  as  big  as  the  mainsail  of  a  tea- 
clipper  is  sometimes  placed  over  the  front  of  a  rabi 
to  conceal  all  sight  of  the  ceremonies  within  from 
passing  eyes.  We  guessed  that  the  strange  appear- 
ance before  us  was  caused  in  some  such  manner. 
What  devilry  might  be  doing  behind  the  screen  only 
Satan  himself  could  tell,  and  none  of  us  wished  to 
speculate  about  it. 

The  vision  faded  as  quickly  as  it  had  arisen.  In 
an  instant,  as  we  watched  it,  the  light  went  out  and 
the  glowing  arch  vanished  as  though  it  had  never 
been. 

For  all  that,  it  did  not  leave  the  Kia  Ora  as  it 
found  her.  We  were  no  longer  in  a  primaeval  soli- 
tude ;  on  the  contrary,  we  had  some  thousands  of 
near  neighbours  about  whom  no  one  knew  anything 
at  all,  except  that  they  were  savages  of  a  pretty  bad 
kind.  Further,  we  were  stuck  fast,  and  could  not 
get  away  for  many  hours.  Also,  we  had  no  arms  to 
speak  of.  In  addition,  we  were  loaded  with  covetable 
goods.  And  there  was  no  particular  reason  to  think 
that  our  score  or  two  of  recruits  would  take  our  side 
in  case  of  trouble. 

It  sounds  like  an  "  adventure,"  but  it  did  not  feel 
like  one.  According  to  all  the  canons  of  literature, 
we  should  have  been  fortifying  the  ship  against 
attack,  posting  sentries  in  the  crow's-nest,  looking  up 
our  one  rifle  and  two  pistols,  and  preparing,  if  neces- 
sary, to  sell  our  lives  and  our  beads  and  tomahawks 


LOST  ON   THE   RIVER  155 

as  dearly  as  possible.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  were 
complaining  about  the  quality  of  the  coffee,  and 
wondering  if  the  rain  was  going  to  stop.  No  one 
troubled  particularly  about  the  rabi  and  its  inhabi- 
tants. Of  course,  we  might  have  been  attacked,  but 
we  did  not  think  it  likely,  and  one  cannot  afford  to 
trouble  about  improbabilities  in  a  place  so  entirely 
incalculable  as  Papua. 

Next  morning  we  got  away  with  the  sunrise,  and 
proceeded  to  lose  ourselves  as  complexly  and  com- 
pletely as  ever  a  ship  and  ship's  company  were  lost. 
"We  steamed  for  hours  and  miles  and  scores  of  miles 
up  creeks  that  led  finally  to  nowhere  and  had  to  be 
backed  out  of.  We  went  up  big  rivers  that  were  not 
on  the  map,  and  careered  along  deep  waterways  where 
dry  land  was  distinctly  charted.  We  went  round 
and  round  and  in  and  out,  all  the  time  seeing  not 
a  sign  of  life  or  even  a  cultivated  tree.  We  sat 
down  on  shoals  and  got  warped  off  with  infinite 
difficulty  ;  we  smashed  into  the  banks  with  the  force 
of  the  current  at  the  corners  times  without  number, 
and  carried  away  large  sections  of  the  surrounding 
forest.  At  last  it  became  perfectly  evident  that  the 
steamer  was  "  bushed  "  (Anglic^,  lost  in  the  bush). 
This  was  the  unexpected  again.  In  Australia  you  do 
not  get  bushed  with  a  steamer,  nor  do  you  go  across 
country  in  one  ;  but  anything  may  happen  in  Papua. 

The  Kia  Ora,  under  these  trying  circumstances, 
behaved  as  other  things  do  that  have  lost  their  way. 
She    sat  down  half  on,  half  off  a  convenient   shoal. 


156  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

and  bellowed  loudly  with  her  siren.  It  had  no  result 
whatever.  She  then  got  off  the  bank,  pulled  herself 
together,  and  made  a  last  effort  to  strike,  at  least,  the 
path  by  which  she  had  come.  In  this  she  was  not 
successful,  but  she  found  something — the  Pacific 
Ocean — and  immediately  trumpeted  her  discovery 
like  a  pleased  elephant.  It  was  now  clear  that,  if  we 
did  not  exactly  know  where  we  were,  we  knew  where 
we  were  not. 

A  forlorn  hope  in  a  boat  was  then  sent  out,  duly 
provisioned  and  watered,  and  after  the  lapse  of  half 
a  day  returned  with  the  cheering  report  that  the  coast 
mission  station  lay  only  a  few  points  away  on  the 
port  bow,  and  had  furnished  a  pilot.  With  the  guide 
(a  native  who  knew  something,  not  much — no  one 
knows  much  about  the  delta)  we  started  back  for  the 
river-maze  again  to  look  for  another  village,  and 
succeeded  in  finding  one — we  were  not  at  all  particu- 
lar by  this  time  as  to  what  we  found  or  where  we 
found  it.  Its  name,  we  learned,  was  lai.  The  people 
were  an  ugly-looking  lot,  and  seemed  terrified  of  the 
steamer  at  first,  trembling  and  crying  out  when  she 
let  off  her  whistle.  By  and  by,  seeing  our  people 
come  ashore,  they  gained  confidence,  and,  keeping 
tight  hold  of  their  bows  and  arrows,  came  in  a 
perfect  flotilla  of  canoes  round  the  ship,  staring, 
muttering,  spitting  gory  betel-nut,  and  all  the  time 
keeping  an  eye  on  the  captain,  who  was  busy  recruit- 
ing ashore,  followed  by  about  half  the  men  of  the 
village.     The  women   did  not  hide  themselves,   but 


SAGO   BEATING  157 

none  of  them  ventured  near  the  ship  ;  they  kept 
away  by  themselves,  and  did  not  even  stop  their 
monotonous  sago-beating  work  to  look  at  us.  Very 
few  white  people  had  ever  been  seen  in  lai,  but  you 
cannot  be  curious  if  you  are  miserable,  and  no  one 
who  looked  at  the  degraded,  brutalised,  smileless 
faces  of  these  poor  women  could  have  doubted  the 
fact  that  they  were  utterly  wretched.  They  were  a 
shade  lower  than  anything  we  had  yet  seen  in  the 
delta  or  elsewhere.  They  had  not  even  the  grass 
petticoats  worn  in  other  districts  ;  save  for  a  small 
strip  of  bark,  they  were  naked.  Some  of  them  wore 
the  white  tusk  thrust  through  the  nose,  which  we  had 
noticed  in  the  men  of  the  river  tribes,  but  not  in  the 
women.  It  looked,  if  possible,  even  more  repulsive 
on  a  woman's  face  than  a  man's. 

The  sago-beating  in  which  they  were  employed 
takes  up  most  of  a  woman's  time  in  the  delta  country. 
The  men  fell  and  bring  in  the  palms,  and  there  their 
task  stops.  With  crude  stone  adzes  the  women 
hollow  out  the  trunk,  loosening  the  pith,  and  collect- 
ing it  in  the  hollow  of  the  gutted  tree.  They  then 
pour  water  into  the  trunk  and  wash  out  the  starchy 
matter  of  which  the  pith  is  full,  letting  the  latter  fall 
on  the  ground.  The  starch  or  sago  is  dried  in  the 
sun  and  tied  up  in  bundles,  which  are  neatly  packed 
in  leaves.  The  work  is  slow  and  tedious.  On  the 
recent  Mackay  exploring  expedition  the  carriers  made 
sago  for  the  food  of  the  party,  and  it  was  found  that 
they  could  not  make  more  than   two  days'  supply  in 


158  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

a  whole  day's  work.  In  all  probability  the  Purari 
woman  does  not  get  through  so  much. 

At  lai,  rather  to  our  astonishment,  there  was  quite 
a  furore  to  engage,  and  we  went  away  with  the  Kia 
Oras  accommodation  pretty  severely  taxed — "  the 
connection  of  which  with  the  plot"  did  not  appear 
until  some  days  later,  when  we  heard  that  the  lai 
warriors  had  been  in  mischief  and  were  very  anxious 
indeed  to  get  out  of  the  way  of  possible  vengeance. 
If  anyone  ever  deserved  retribution,  they  did.  They 
had  asked  eleven  of  the  people  from  a  neighbouring 
village  to  come  over  and  spend  a  happy  day  with 
them.  The  people  (who  certainly  ought  to  have 
known  their  neighbours  a  little  better)  accepted  the 
invitation.  They  put  on  their  dogs'-teeth  necklaces 
and  their  parrot-feather  haloes,  painted  their  faces  in 
fresh  black  and  red,  and  arrived  in  canoes,  prepared 
to  have  a  good  time.  There  was  a  good  time  ;  but, 
as  things  turned  out,  only  the  laians  had  it.  They 
also  had  the  visitors — boiled,  with  sticks  of  sago. 

A  return  call  was  confidently  expected  before  long 
from  the  survivors,  and  the  laians,  innocent  and 
guilty  alike,  were  very  anxious  to  be  "  not  at  home." 
For  this  reason  a  score  or  two  of  the  party-givers 
came  away  with  us,  hoping,  no  doubt,  that  any  local 
prejudice  would  have  time  to  subside  before  they 
came  back  from  the  plantations.  The  actual  murder- 
ers did  not  enlist.  They  were  captured  by  the  police 
some  time  afterwards. 


CHAPTER  V 

Among  the  rubber  plantations — Prospects  of  Para — The  gold-mine  of 
the  soil — Land  that  goes  begging — The  cost  of  rubber — About 
the  cocoanut — A  sisal  hemp  plantation — Ficus  r'lgo — A  splendid 
sugar  country — Timbers  still  untouched — Copper  and  gold. 

T7ROM  lai  we  made  our  way  out  into  the  open  sea 
without  any  further  disasters,  and  took  our  way 
Port  Moresby-wards  with  our  cargo  of  plantation 
hands.  All  of  them  on  arrival  were  taken  up  to  the 
magistrate,  who  satisfied  himself  that  they  understood 
what  they  were  going  to  do  and  how  much  they  were 
going  to  get.  If  any  one  of  them  at  this  stage  of  the 
proceedings  had  changed  his  mind  about  going  on 
with  the  affair,  the  recruiter  would  have  been  obliged 
to  take  him  back  to  his  home  at  the  earliest  oppor- 
tunity, and  meantime  provide  him  with  food  and 
lodging.  None  of  them  did  change  their  minds,  how- 
ever, and  in  the  course  of  a  few  hours  the  whole 
hundred  had  affixed  their  marks  to  the  contract  which 
the  recruiting  agent  had  already  signed.  It  was  dis- 
covered about  this  time  that  there  were  several  men 
more  than  could  be  accounted  for — in  fact,  that  we 
had  actually  been  carrying  stowaways  !  The  extra 
hands  were  as  anxious  as  the  others  to  sign  on,  and 
went  away  quite  pleased  with  themselves. 

159 


i6o  THE   NEW    NEW   GUINEA 

Well,  1  had  "  seen  the  Medway,"  and  that  was 
more  than  any  one  of  the  planters  who  anticipated 
shortage  of  labour  had  done.  What  conclusions  were 
suggested  ? 

This  only — that  the  alarm  was  the  purest  of  myth. 
Since  that  visit  a  year  and  a  half  has  passed,  and  the 
plantations  that  were  to  have  been  long  ago  "  held 
up  "  for  want  of  boys  are  still  working  full  pressure. 
The  great  unknown  and  uncivilised  West  has  enough 
men  to  supply  the  plantations  ten  times  over  for 
many  years  to  come.  I  do  not  wonder  that  those 
who  have  never  seen  the  dense  population  of  the 
rivers  should  imagine — ^judging  by  the  more  thinly 
peopled  districts  of  the  East — that  the  supply  might 
have  a  limit.  But  no  one  who  has  seen  the  West, 
and  been  actual  witness  of  the  readiness  which  the 
natives  display  to  enlist,  can  think  that  there  are  not 
"  hands  "  in  plenty  for  all  Papua. 

The  eastern  districts  supply  very  good  men,  better 
in  some  ways  than  the  "Kiwai,"  as  the  western  people 
are  called.  They  are  less  quarrelsome  among  them- 
selves, and  seem  to  learn  the  plantation  work  quicker. 
The  intellect  of  the  western,  however,  appears  to  be 
capable  of  a  higher  development  in  exceptional  cases.  I 
have  seen  a  coflFee  plantation  left  under  the  sole  charge 
of  a  "Kiwai"  overseer,  who  attended  to  the  weeding, 
picking,  pulping,  and  drying  of  the  coffee  without 
any  regular  help,  though  the  owner  used  to  make  a 
visit  to  the  place  once  in  a  few  weeks.  On  another 
plantation    not    far    from    this,   the   native   labourers 


A   NEW   SYSTEM  i6i 

under  charge  of  a  Kiwai  got  in  the  whole  crop  of 
coffee  without  any  direction  during  the  absence  of  the 
owner,  who  had  always  seen  to  it  himself  before. 

It  would  be  a  great  deal  too  much  to  say  that  the 
Papuan  is  as  satisfactory,  or  as  cheap,  as  the  Cingalese 
or  Chinese  worker  ;  but  his  wages  (ten  shillings  a 
month)  are  not  high,  and  he  serves  his  turn  well  on 
the  whole.  The  importation  of  foreign  labour  is  for- 
bidden by  the  laws  of  the  Papuan  Government,  so, 
for  good  or  ill,  he  must  be  made  the  best  of. 

On  one  of  the  plantations  a  new  system  is  at 
present  being  tried  with  very  good  results.  It  has 
been  recognised  for  some  time  that  there  are  draw- 
backs to  the  custom  of  taking  away  a  large  number 
of  the  young  men  from  a  village,  sometimes  for  years 
together.  Some  of  the  women  are  left  without  their 
husbands,  and  quarrels  and  murders  often  occur  in 
consequence ;  others  remain  unmarried,  and  the  popu- 
lation does  not  increase  as  it  should.  The  workers 
themselves  often  grow  discontented  at  the  absence  of 
their  women,  and  do  not  sign  on  for  a  second  term, 
though  well  enough  contented  with  the  work  and 
pay.  To  remedy  this  one  planter  is  putting  up 
married  quarters  for  his  men,  and  enabling  them  to 
bring  their  wives  with  them  free  of  expense.  Ground 
for  yam  and  manioc  growing  is  given  them,  and 
rations  provided  free  for  the  wife  while  the  first  crop 
of  native  food  is  being  raised.  Each  couple  is  given  a 
neat  little  separate  house,  built  by  the  carpenter  of 
the  plantation.    The  wife  is  not  asked  to  work  unless 

M 


i62  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

she  chooses,  but  if  she  cares  to  take  a  hand  with  light 
weeding,  mat  and  basket  making,  gathering  crops,  or 
other  temporary  labour,  she  is  paid  by  the  piece,  and 
so  are  the  children  if  any  of  them  are  old  enough  to 
help.  It  is  hoped  that  in  this  way  permanent  villages 
of  skilled  workers  will  be  gathered  about  the  planta- 
tions and  the  expense  and  trouble  of  recruiting  much 
lessened.  On  the  plantation  referred  to  the  manager 
has  actually  taken  the  step  of  presenting  the  boys 
with  sufficient  "  trade  "  to  buy  a  wife,  provided  they 
bring  their  wives  with  them  to  stay  out  their  engage- 
ment. The  offer  has  created  unprecedented  excite- 
ment, and  the  consequent  demand  for  wives  has 
almost  caused  a  rise  in  the  market.  This  is  easily 
understood  when  one  considers  that  a  good  many  of 
the  "  boys  "  recruit  almost  solely  with  the  object  of 
accumulating  wealth  enough  to  purchase  a  wife  at  the 
end  of  their  term  of  labour. 

I  wanted  to  see  this  plantation,  so  I  took  advantage 
of  an  opportunity  that  presented  itself  later  on,  and 
left  the  Merrie  England  one  morning  very  early  in 
a  whaleboat  towed  by  a  launch.  It  is  rather  incon- 
veniently situated,  being  twelve  miles  up  a  river, 
but  nevertheless  the  country  immediately  round 
seems  to  be  popular,  as  seven  other  plantations  are  to 
be  found  in  the  same  district. 

Through  water-forests  of  nipa  palm,  under  tower- 
ing mangrove  trees  a  hundred  feet  high,  the  ugly, 
useful  little  steam-launch  panted  her  way  mile  after 
mile.     Sometimes   we  crossed  great  shallow  lagoons 


PARA   RUBBER  163 

where  a  good  look  out  for  sand-banks  had  to  be  kept  ; 
sometimes  we  glided  along  through  dense  overarching 
shade  in  a  stream  deep  enough  to  float  an  ocean  liner. 
There  were  no  banks  to  this  river  ;  the  trees  sprang 
straight  up  out  of  the  stream  after  the  strange  fashion 
of  New  Guinea,  and  one  could  see  the  sparkle  of 
dark  stagnant  water  far  in  among  the  depths  of  the 
surrounding  forest.  It  seemed  as  if  there  had  been 
a  huge  inundation,  burying  all  the  land,  and  only- 
allowing  the  trees  to  emerge.  Very  still  indeed  was 
the  whole  weird  tangle  of  forest  and  river  through 
which  we  threaded  our  way — these  rivers  are  always 
still  as  sleep,  running  as  they  do  sheltered  and  hidden 
at  the  bottom  of  their  great  canons  of  mangrove, 
where  not  a  breath  of  wind  can  stir  the  palms  and 
the  trailing,  suffocating  liana  creepers.  There  was 
only  one  obvious  thing  to  do — go  to  sleep  until  the 
plantation  was  reached  ;  so  I  did. 

Three  hours  later  we  got  to  the  landing-stage, 
a  rough,  strong  platform  of  logs,  with  a  "  corduroy 
road,"  also  of  logs,  leading  up  from  it  towards  the 
plantation  manager's  hut.  The  place  is  interesting 
in  this  land  of  brand-new  plantations,  being  the  only 
one  where  rubber  is  being  tried  on  a  fairly  large  scale. 
Eight  thousand  acres  have  been  taken  up.  At  the 
time  of  my  visit  six  hundred  were  cleared  and 
planted  with  Para  rubber.  It  looked  rather  a  deso- 
late scene,  as  the  whole  six  hundred  acres  was  in  one 
large  bare  block,  covered  with  a  raffle  of  decaying 
branches    and    black    half-burned     trunks     of    trees. 


i64  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

among  which  the  slender  young  saplings  of  rubber 
were  scarcely  noticeable.  Another  year  or  two  would 
see  a  beautiful  park  of  many  shady  avenues  take  the 
place  of  this  wilderness,  but  only  the  eye  of  faith 
could  see  anything  attractive  about  the  plantation  as 
it  looked  early  in  1909. 

One  of  the  assistant  managers,  in  the  absence  of 
the  head,  took  our  little  party  round  and  explained 
with  enthusiasm  all  that  had  been  done.  It  was 
evident  that  he  loved  every  straggling  rubber-stump 
and  each  feathery  little  seedling  like  his  own  child. 
The  "  nursery  "  almost  moved  him  to  tears  ;  and  in 
truth  it  was  a  pretty  sight,  with  the  hundreds  of 
bright  green  seedlings  clustered  together  in  beds  and 
the  taller  plants  set  neatly  in  hedges  beneath  the 
shelter  of  the  surrounding  forest.  A  good  many  of 
the  saplings  had  attained  the  height  of  fourteen  feet 
in  fourteen  months  from  the  sowing  of  the  seed. 
The  soil  of  this  district  is  like  most  Papuan  soils, 
rich  enough  to  act  as  a  natural  forcing-house  on  any- 
thing that  is  planted  in  it.  Rubber  is  a  very  greedy 
tree,  and  cannot  be  grown  without  plenty  of  rain, 
plenty  of  sun,  plenty  of  the  richest  constituents  in 
the  soil — in  fact,  unless  "  done  well "  in  every  way, 
it  will  not  do  you  well.  If  you  can  satisfy  its  de- 
mands, however,  it  will  make  you  wealthy  in  a  very 
few  years.     Here  are  some  of  the  figures  put  briefly. 

A  hundred  acres  of  rubber  costs  about  a  thousand 
pounds  to  clear  and  plant,  including  every  possible 
expense,  and  leaving  a  margin  of  a  hundred  pounds 


RUBBER  PROSPECTS  165 

or  more  for  contingencies.  The  weeding  and  upkeep 
of  the  plantation  for  six  years,  until  the  trees  are 
ready  to  tap,  will  cost  another  fifteen  hundred,  if  the 
owner  manages  himself.  If  he  employs  a  manager, 
he  will  have  to  pay  him  about  three  hundred  a  year, 
which  adds  eighteen  hundred  more.  Assuming  that 
the  owner  does  his  own  managing  (always  the  best 
plan  if  possible),  the  plantation  will  have  cost  him 
about  two  thousand  five  hundred  pounds  by  the 
time  it  begins  to  pay  back.  He  will  also  have  had 
to  keep  himself,  but  if  he  lives  on  his  plantation  the 
expense  of  this  is  small. 

In  the  sixth  year  the  trees,  at  a  low  estimate, 
should  give  a  pound  of  rubber  each.  At  five  shil- 
lings a  pound,  eighty-six  trees  being  planted  to  the 
acre,  this  is  equal  to  ^2150 — very  nearly  the  whole 
of  the  expenditure  already.  In  the  next  year  the 
yield  should  be  doubled,  and  later  on  it  will,  under 
ordinary  conditions,  rise  as  high  as  eight  pounds 
a  tree — possibly  much  more.  An  income  of  seven- 
teen thousand  a  year,  from  an  original  expenditure  of 
not  much  over  two,  should  be  good  enough  to  please 
the  most  exacting. 

Will  the  present  price  of  rubber  keep  up  ?  There 
is  every  reason  to  suppose  that  it  will,  as  the  demand 
constantly  increases.  But  even  if  it  falls  considerably, 
there  will  still  be  a  large  profit.  It  has  been  calcu- 
lated that  when,  or  if,  rubber  is  procurable  at  three 
shillings  a  pound,  it  will  pay  street  paving  contractors 
to  make  very  extensive  use  of  it.     In  that  case  the 


1 66  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

demand  for  paving  work  will  be  enormous.     Any- 
thing over  a  shilling  a  pound  is  profit  to  the  grower. 

There  is  another  word  to  be  said  about  the  matter. 
All  these  calculations  are  based  on  what  has  been  done 
by  rubber  planters  in  Ceylon,  the  Malay  States,  and 
other  well-known  colonies,  as  it  is  not  yet  six  years 
since  the  first  of  the  rubber  trees  (those  in  the 
Astrolabe  plantations)  were  set  out.  But  there  is 
good  reason  to  suppose  that  Papua  may  do  better. 
It  is  the  natural  home  of  the  rubber  tree.  For  a 
good  many  years,  off  and  on,  a  certain  amount  of 
rubber  from  the  wild  trees  of  the  country  {Ficus 
rigo)  has  been  irregularly  sent  to  the  home  and 
colonial  markets,  and  has  always  fetched  high  prices. 
Now  the  Haevia  Brazi/iensis,  or  Para  rubber,  which 
is  of  late  being  planted,  is  much  superior  to  the 
Ficus  rigo,  which  in  this  country  seems  to  equal 
the  Para  in  others.  The  inference  is  that  the  Para 
will  do  better  in  Papua  than  it  has  done  anywhere 
else. 

So  far  as  experience  goes,  it  carries  out  this  suppo- 
sition. The  manager  of  the  plantation  I  visited  had 
come  to  Papua  from  Ceylon,  one  of  the  chief  rubber- 
growing  countries  of  the  world.  He  was  of  opinion 
that  his  plantation  looked  better  and  promised  better 
than  anything  he  had  ever  had  under  his  hands  before. 
The  rapid  growth  of  the  young  rubber  was  phe- 
nomenal, and  it  did  not  seem  to  be  suffering  in  any 
way  from  its  quick  development.  It  must  be  re- 
membered   in    this    connection    that   all    the   Asiatic 


LAND   OF   RIVERS  167 

countries  have  been  inhabited  for  centuries  by  civi- 
lised, industrious  peoples,  who  have  fully  understood 
the  value  of  the  soil  and  taken  all  they  could  get  out 
of  it.  Papua,  on  the  contrary,  has  been  in  the  hands 
of  absolute  savages  of  the  lowest  kind.  They  know 
nothing  of  agriculture,  except  so  far  as  concerns  the 
raising  of  a  minimum  of  easy  crops  of  vegetables 
and  fruit,  and  the  ground  that  has  already  been  used 
for  this  sort  of  farming  bears  about  as  much  relation 
to  the  virgin  soils  as  a  biscuit  might  to  a  large  dining- 
room  table.  Further,  the  soil  of  Papua  is  very 
probably  richer  in  itself  than  that  of  any  other 
British  colony,  owing  to  the  local  conditions  of  con- 
stant heat,  large  rainfall  maintained  by  very  high 
mountains,  dense  vegetation,  and  numberless  rivers. 

It  is  indeed  a  land  of  rivers.  On  the  plantation 
I  was  visiting  there  are  so  many  rivers,  large  and 
small,  that  they  are  simply  known  by  numbers — 
"  Creek "  number  one,  number  two,  and  so  on. 
Water  carriage  is  easy  everywhere  in  the  low  country  ; 
even  the  plantations  that  are  many  miles  inland  can 
always  have  a  river  to  act  as  beast  of  burden.  In 
the  mountains  you  must  use  mules,  which  are  costly, 
but  then  the  mountain  climate  is  perfect,  and  that  of 
the  low  country  is  not,  though  by  no  means  so  bad 
as  it  has  been  represented.  Each  district  has  its  own 
advantages  and  its  own  drawbacks. 

On  these  lowland  plantations  life  is  much  the  same 
as  in  the  mountains,  with  this  difference,  that  com- 
munication  with   Moresby  or  Samarai  is  quick  and 


1 68  THE   NEW   NEW  GUINEA 

easy,  being  carried  on  by  the  plantation  launch   or 
cutter.      Food   is   largely   supplied   by    the    shooting 
boys,  who  spend  their  time  tramping  the  bush  with 
a   shot-gun  and  an  allowance  of  cartridges,   stalking 
wild  pig,  wallaby,   pigeon,   duck,    and   miscellaneous 
birds.     Most  kinds   of  English   vegetables — lettuce, 
cabbage,  carrots,  radishes,  etc. — can  be  grown  on  the 
plantation    with    little     trouble.      There    are    many 
tropical    vegetables    which    are    very    good    of   their 
kind,     such     as    yams,    sweet    potatoes,     pumpkins, 
chokos,  aubergines,  manioc,  and  which  help  to  make 
a  variety.     Bananas  and  plantains,  which  are  a  variety 
of  cooking  banana,  will  in  any  case  be  grown  for  the 
labour.     Cocoanuts  are    most   useful   in  the  tropical 
cuisine,  and  can  be  obtained  elsewhere.     Fish  are  to 
be  caught  in  most  of  the  rivers.      Fruit  can  be  grown 
in    any    quantity — pineapples    do    rather    too    well, 
having  a  tendency  to  "  take  charge  "  of  the  place  if 
not     restrained  :    pawpaws    (a    kind    of   tree-melon) 
spring  up  like  weeds,  and  granadilla,  which  is  cer- 
tainly   the    queen    fruit    of   the    tropics,    as  well    as 
passion-fruit,   not   much    its   inferior,   can  be  trained 
over  trellis  work  near  the  house  to  add  to  the  beauty 
of  the  surroundings  with    their   lovely   flowers   and 
leaves.     Oranges,  lemons,   and    limes    grow  wild  in 
many  places,  and  can  be   quickly  raised  where  they 
do   not.     On   the   whole,   the  planter  lives  well  in  a 
simple   way,    and    his    food  costs   him    as    nearly  as 
possible  nothing. 

Houses  are  generally  built  of  native  materials  out 


UUliniNC.    A     I'l,  AN  I  i:u'S    IIOUSK 


To  face  page  i63. 


A   PLANTER'S   HOUSE  169 

of  the  bush  at  first,  as  a  wood  and  iron  bungalow 
costs  several  hundred  pounds,  and  the  other,  if  built 
by  plantation  labour,  need  not  cost  more  than  fifty. 
These  houses  of  thatch,  bark,  and  split  branches  arc 
quite  comfortable  and  weatherproof  and  very  pictur- 
esque. They  harbour  insects,  however,  rather  more 
than  is  convenient  and  need  a  good  many  small 
repairs  ;  for  which  reason  the  prosperous  planter 
generally  orders  himself  a  bungalow  of  wood  and 
corrugated  iron  from  Sydney  when  he  feels  that  he 
can  afford  luxuries,  and  settles  down  in  a  house  with 
glass  windows  (which  are  never  closed),  an  iron  roof, 
a  boarded  verandah,  and  (if  he  has  a  wife)  a  drawing- 
room  full  of  cane  and  bentwood  furniture,  framed 
photographs,  and  mats.  The  sitting-room  is  quite 
certain  to  be  decorated  with  native  clubs  and  arrows 
arranged  in  trophies  on  the  walls,  stone  axe-heads, 
alligator-jaws,  swordfish  swords,  huge  clam-shells, 
pearl-shell  necklaces,  head-dresses  of  coloured  feathers, 
and  other  Papuan  curios.  There  will  be  saddles  and 
bridles  on  the  back  verandah,  and  samples  of  hemp 
or  rubber  or  coffee — un  pen  partout.  There  will  be 
half  a  dozen  home-made  canvas  stretchers  and  some 
mosquito  nets  and  blankets  stowed  away  somewhere 
for  the  accommodation  of  any  unexpected  guests  who 
may  happen  to  sail  or  ride  in  and  demand  a  lodging. 
Nothing  more  is  necessary  ;  a  Papuan  planter  house 
can  put  up  an  extra  dozen  without  feeling  it  at  any 
time.  Most  people  sleep  in  the  open  air  by  preter- 
Qwz^^  and  the  verandah  of  even   the  smallest  house 


lyo  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

can  easily  be  made  into  a  comfortable  dormitory  for 
as  many  as  you  may  please. 

At  the  present  time  the  tendency  of  settlers  is  to 
take  up  land  in  a  district  where  they  are  sure  of  a  few 
neighbours,  such  as  Galley  Reach,  which  has  eight 
plantations,  large  and  small,  or  Sogeri,  in  the  Astro- 
labe, which  has  three.  This  is  very  natural,  but 
restricts  the  planter  a  good  deal  in  his  choice.  Some 
of  the  very  best  districts  in  Papua  have  not  yet  been 
so  much  as  inquired  after.  It  would  be  a  great 
advantage  to  the  colony  and  to  settlers  themselves  if 
they  could  come  in  parties  and  take  up  a  good  extent 
of  country  among  five  or  six  friends.  This  would 
avoid  the  complete  isolation  which  new-comers  natur- 
ally dread,  and  at  the  same  time  would  open  up 
excellent  country  which  is  at  present  being  neglected. 

It  will  scarcely  be  believed,  but  is  nevertheless 
true,  that  land  of  the  best  quality,  lying  close  beside 
the  towns,  still  remains  to  be  taken  up.  While  stay- 
ing at  Samarai  I  spent  a  day  walking  in  the  bush  to 
gather  some  personal  impression  of  what  yet  remained 
in  the  way  of  "  plums  "  for  the  enterprising  selector. 
The  tale  of  that  day  is  worth  telling  in  a  chapter 
about  plantations. 

I  had  been  staying  on  Samarai  for  some  weeks,  but 
was  busy  with  other  work,  and  had  (like  most  people) 
taken  it  for  granted  that  at  the  present  stage  of  the 
country's  development  all  the  good  land  lying  close 
up  to  the  largest  town  in  the  Territory  must  neces- 
sarily have  been  secured.     Samarai  is  built  on  a  small 


LAND   GOES   BEGGING   HERE        171 

island  some  two  miles  from  the  mainland  of  Papua, 
and  is  surrounded  by  very  beautiful  scenery  of  hills 
and  valleys  sloping  down  to  the  shores  of  the  many 
bays  and  inlets  that  indent  the  coast.  From  the 
verandah  of  the  hotels  you  can  almost  count  the  trees 
on  the  shores,  and  can  see  every  little  clearing  and 
every  patch  planted  with  native  food  as  clearly  as  if 
you  were  beside  them. 

"  I  suppose  all  that  is  taken  up  long  ago.''"  I  said 
vaguely  one  day,  hanging  over  the  verandah  railing 
and  looking  out  at  the  splendid  view  across  the 
harbour. 

"  All  what  ?"  asked  the  resident,  who  was  lounging 
In  a  hammock-chair  close  at  hand. 

"  That  land  in  sight  of  Samarai,  on  the  mainland. 
I  wonder  why  they  don't  clear  it." 

"  Some  of  it's  native — not  much.  The  rest  isn't 
anybody's — most  of  it." 

"  What's  the  matter  with  it  ?  " 

"  Nothing  that  I  know  of." 

"  Then  why  does  no  one  apply  for  it  .'*  " 

"  What  for  .?  " 

"  To  plant — land  only  half  an  hour  from  the  steamer 
wharf !  " 

"  Oh— to  plant!  Yes,  somebody  has  taken  up  some, 
1  believe — a  few  acres  somewhere  to  grow  something, 
I  forget  what." 

"  Don't  you  think  it  will  be  worth  a  good  deal  of 
money  by  and  by.''" 

"  I  don't  know.     It  never  was   worth   any  that  I 


172  THE   NEW  NEW   GUINEA 

remember.  Soil  ?  Oh,  yes,  I  suppose  it's  all  right. 
But  nobody  wants  it." 

"  Why  in  the  name  of  common  sense  don't 
they  ? " 

"  Well,  come  to  think  of  it,  you  can't  plant  for 
nothing,  and  we're  none  of  us  millionaires  here." 

The  argument  seemed  sound  so  far  as  it  went.  It 
appeared  worth  while,  all  the  same,  to  take  a  boat 
across  to  the  other  side  and  see  what  there  was  to  be 
seen.  Guessing  from  previous  experience  what  that 
might  be,  I  was  careful  to  put  on  hobnailed  boots  and 
a  dress  that  had  seen  so  much  service  as  to  be  inca- 
pable of  further  damage.  It  is  not  in  silk  attire  that 
one  must  walk  the  bush  country  of  Papua. 

The  boat  landed  myself  and  a  friend  on  a  narrow 
strip  of  shore  backed  up  by  primaeval  forest  country 
standing  on  its  hind  legs — the  usual  conformation  of 
the  bush.  A  small  red  scratch  ran  through  it.  This 
was  called  the  track.  1  did  not  call  it  a  track  :  what 
I  did  call  it  at  various  times  during  the  day  that 
followed  I  should  prefer  not  to  repeat.  It  was  almost 
entirely  composed  (like  the  diet  of  a  fasting  saint)  of 
roots  and  water,  and  you  used  your  hands  as  much  as 
your  feet  in  getting  along  it.  After  a  mile  or  so  of 
this  rough  going  we  came  out  into  a  clearing  where 
there  was  a  little  house  built  of  native  materials  and  a 
white  man  moving  about  in  the  open.  This  was  the 
pioneer  of  the  district — the  only  man  who  has  made  a 
settlement  in  that  part  of  the  coast. 

Mr.  S greeted  us  very  hospitably,  and  offered 


/'/;,'/,'  ;;■.  Whit  ten. 


A    I'Al'UAN    IIIC.II    ROAD 


To  lace  page  172. 


UNCLEARED   LAND  173 

to  guide  us  to  a  hill  some  miles  away,  where  we  could 
get  a  good  view  of  the  surrounding  country.  His 
own  little  clearing — but  a  very  few  acres — was  on 
a  modest,  not  to  say  a  minute  scale,  and  nothing  was 
yet  planted.     Want  of  capital  was  the  handicap  here, 

as  in  other  cases.      But  Mr.  S hopes  to  be  able 

to  put  in  some  rubber  by  degrees,  and  he  is  as 
enthusiastic  about  the  possibilities  of  the  surrounding 
country  as  if  he  were  a  squatter  owning  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  acres. 

It  is  hard  for  people  who  have  never  been  out  of 
the  civilised  countries  to  realise  the  difficulties  of 
moving  about  in  absolutely  untouched  tropical  lands. 
Every  yard  of  the  way  must  be  made,  and  the 
making  is  of  the  roughest  kind.  When  you  face 
the  edge  of  a  clearing  you  are  confronted  by  a  wall 
of  forest  that  does  not  indeed  look  quite  impene- 
trable, but  that  is  nevertheless  as  complete  a  barrier 
as  a  brick  wall.  It  Is  not  all  composed  of  huge  trees 
— the  growth  is  too  dense  for  that — but  of  moderate- 
sized  trunks  and  saplings  for  the  most  part,  knitted 
and  laced  together  with  inconspicuous  little  creepers, 
many  of  them  thorny,  that  must  be  cut  through 
before  you  can  set  one  foot  before  the  other.  Fallen 
logs,  half-fallen  logs,  slanting  broken  boughs,  holes 
and  pits  where  dead  roots  have  rotted  away,  still 
further  block  your  progress.  A  "  track  "  in  country 
still  unsettled  means  simply  a  part  of  the  bush  trom 
which  the  worst  obstacles  have  been  removed,  more 
or  less.     The  logs  lying  crossways  at  a  height  of  four 


174  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

or  five  feet,  all  filled  up  with  rubbish,  have  been 
taken  away  ;  those  that  can  be  scrambled  or  stepped 
over  are  left.  Some  of  the  small  trees  have  been  cut 
down  and  most  of  the  slanting  branches  removed.  It 
is  now  possible  to  proceed  along  a  footing  of  roots 
and  slippery  clay,  clambering  over  a  log  now  and 
then,  and  dodging  branches  every  few  yards,  walking 
through  a  stream  when  you  come  to  one  and  follow- 
ing its  bed  wherever  the  water  is  shallow  enough, 
climbing  up  hills  that  are  almost  perpendicular  every 
few  minutes  with  caked  dirt  on  your  boots  and 
despair  in  your  heart  as  you  realise  that  the  next 
hundred  yards  will  wrest  from  you  in  one  rapid 
down-plunge  all  that  you  have  painfully  gained  in 
the  last  half-mile,  and  avoiding  as  best  you  may  pit- 
falls everywhere  laid  for  the  unwary  foot  by  loops 
and  snares  of  root-fibre.  This  you  will  be  told  is  a 
track. 

When  a  district  is  cleared  and  opened  out,  and 
constant  trafHc  of  carriers,  mules,  and  horses  begins 
to  pass  along,  the  miry  bottoms  are  filled  up,  the 
trees  kept  permanently  cut,  and  log  bridges  built 
over  the  gullies.  I  have  seen  astonishingly  good 
roads  up  in  the  mountain  districts  made  by  the 
workers  of  a  plantation  on  a  spot  where  only  a  few 
months  before  the  worst  of  "  tracks  "  used  to  ex- 
asperate the  unfortunate  traveller.  The  Government 
spends  every  year  a  certain  amount  of  money  on 
roads,  but  the  funds  available  for  this  purpose  are 
small,  and   at  the  present  time  almost  every  planter 


CLOSE   TO   SAMARI  175 

has  made,  or  is  making,  his  own  roads.  It  is  not 
a  very  serious  matter  after  all  when  one  has  already 
undertaken  the  job  of  clearing  the  forest  off  hun- 
dreds of  acres  of  land  ;  and  once  made,  a  very  little 
work  will  keep  the  roads  in  fair  order. 

After  three  miles  or  so  of  track  scrambling  we 
reached  a  tiny  native  village,  standing  on  the  top  of 

a  sharply  pointed  hill.     Here,  Mr.  S informed 

me,  I  could  get  a  view  of  the  surrounding  district 
and  see  what  there  was  to  be  had. 

The  view  was  pretty  but  not  enlightening  :  a  sea 
of  dark  green  tree-tops  sparkling  after  recent  rain  ; 
heights  and  hollows  filled  up  and  covered  by  billows 
of  leafage  ;  land  somewhere   underneath,   no  doubt, 

but  no  visible  sign  of  it.      Mr,  S ,  however,  was 

enthusiastic  in  his  praise  of  the  whole  district — all 
close  to  Samarai,  all  within  sight  of  the  sea  if  the 
tree-tops  were  not  in  your  way,  all  the  richest  of  soil, 
all  well  watered  (I  could  answer  for  that,  and  so  could 
my  clothes).  There  was  no  gold  thereabouts,  he 
added  apologetically,  as  if  he  felt  that  it  was  an  un- 
pardonable omission  on  the  part  of  someone — the 
creeks  had  been  prospected,  and  there  was  not  so 
much  as  a  colour.  But  there  were  two  or  three 
other  things  that  would  repay  investigation.  Did 
I  see  that  tree  with  the  orange-red  bark  ?  It  was  the 
kind  of  bark  that  would  make  excellent  paper  with 
a  little  treatment.  There  was  a  great  deal  of  good 
brick  clay  about  the  district,  and  he  had  seen  plenty 
of  ironstone.     There  was  forty  acres  of  sago  all  in 


176  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

one  plot  not  very  far  away  ;  it  was  good  sago 
country.  On  the  whole,  an  excellent  district,  and  he 
wondered  that  no  one  but  himself  had  taken  up  land. 

I  went  back  again  in  the  afternoon,  very  wet  and 
dirty,  but  satisfied  with  the  day.  If  I  were  taking  up 
land  in  Papua  I  should  certainly  select  it  on  the  coast. 
The  coast  lands  are  as  good  as  any  others,  and  the 
advantage  of  easy  access  in  a  country  of  such  irregular 
surface  is  too  great  to  be  neglected. 

But  one  could  imagine  the  new  settler — especially 
if  he  is  just  out  from  home — being  struck  with  despair 
as  he  sees  his  newly  acquired  estate  for  the  first  time. 
A  dark,  wet,  gloomy,  silent  forest,  impenetrable  as  a 
wall,  slimy  underfoot,  dripping  overhead — it  takes 
the  eye  of  faith  to  see  in  all  this  promise  of  future 
prosperity  and  comfort ;  to  realise  that  the  hideous 
soil  is  almost  pure  leaf-mould,  generations  old  and 
full  of  fatness  ;  that  the  encumbering  trees  are  in 
many  cases  valuable  timber,  and  that  most  of  the 
sopping,  spongy  wet  will  pass  away  when  the  land  is 
laid  open  to  light  and  air.  .  .  .  The  pioneer  earns 
his  prosperity  dearly  enough  ;  still,  here  as  elsewhere, 
all  things  come  to  him  who  can  afford  to  wait. 

Rubber  is  by  no  means  the  only  culture  to  be 
recommended,  although  it  is  one  about  which  much 
has  been  heard.  Copra  is  preferred  by  a  good  many, 
and  it  certainly  has  its  advantages.  Copra  is  the 
trade  term  for  the  dried  kernel  of  the  cocoanut.  The 
demand  for  this  product  is  steady  and  safe  and  not 
much    subject    to    market    fluctuations.      It    is    very 


A    COPRA    PLANTATION  177 

largely  used  in  the  composition  of  some  of  the  best- 
known  soaps  in  the  world,  and  is  also  much  in 
demand  for  cocoa-butter,  oil,  oil-cake,  and  other 
manufactures.  Little  or  no  skill  is  required  in  its 
preparing,  since  that  is  simply  a  matter  of  cutting 
and  drying  the  nuts.  The  work  of  planting  and 
weeding  cocoanut  palms  and  preparing  copra  is  one 
that  the  native  takes  to  very  easily,  as  he  is  already 
familiar  with  most  of  it.  Six  years  is  the  average 
time  before  the  trees  come  into  bearing  ;  they  remain 
in  bearing  for  something  like  seventy  or  eighty. 
Half  a  ton  of  copra  an  acre  is  safe  to  reckon  on  ; 
good  trees  well  looked  after  should  produce  much 
more  when  ten  or  fifteen  years  old.  The  present 
price  of  copra  sold  in  Papua  is  £1^  a  ton.  It  has 
been  on  the  increase  for  years  past,  and  there  is  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  it  will  be  less  in  future. 

A  plantation  of  a  hundred  acres,  therefore,  after  six 
years  should  begin  by  producing  about  £joo  yearly, 
and  will  eventually  be  worth  almost  double  as  much. 
Its  first  cost  will  depend  very  much  on  the  district  it 
is  in,  as  clearing  expenses  vary  largely.  I  have  seen 
a  fine  plantation  that  was  cleared  and  planted  for  less 
than  £2  an  acre  ;  but  the  price  is  generally  more. 
Local  contractors  will  undertake  any  kind  of  clearing 
and  planting  for  -(^6  an  acre  ;  and  no  doubt  a  good 
profit  is  made  out  of  this. 

The  truth  is  that  it  is  hardly  possible  to  give 
precise  figures  as  to  expenses  that  will  provide  for 
all   conditions.      Most  planters  keep  accounts  rather 


1 78  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

loosely,  and  not  all  are  willing  to  tell  what  their 
profits  may  be.  It  can  be  generally  said  about  copra 
that  it  is  as  safe  and  simple  a  thing  as  a  man  can 
undertake,  and  that  it  is  pre-eminently  the  culture 
for  the  settler  who  wishes  to  make  a  future  provision 
for  his  children.  The  uses  of  the  cocoanut  are  so 
many  that  there  is  no  reasonable  possibility  of  its 
being  driven  out  by  chemical  manufactures.  An 
estate  in  going  order  will  always  sell  well  if  the  owner 
wishes  to  dispose  of  it,  and  it  takes  less  money  to 
keep  up  than  almost  any  other  kind  of  plantation,  nor 
does  it  go  to  pieces  if  altogether  neglected  for  a  few 
years. 

The  item  of  working  expenses  is  another  that  can 
hardly  be  figured  out  precisely  without  actual  condi- 
tions as  a  guide.  Some  planters  find  that  ^150 
a  year,  exclusive  of  manager's  salary,  will  keep  a 
plantation  of  a  hundred  acres  going  ;  others  place 
the  figure  a  little  higher  ;  one  puts  it  a  good  deal 
lower.  -There  is  nothing  to  do  during  the  six 
years  of  waiting  but  keep  the  place  weeded ;  and 
in  some  districts  labour  of  a  casual  kind,  quite 
suitable  for  such  work,  can  be  had  for  seven  shillings 
a  month. 

This  six  years'  waiting  is  the  principal  trouble  with 
the  two  great  cultures  of  Papua,  rubber  and  copra. 
At  first  sight,  sisal  hemp  and  other  quickly  paying 
plants  seem  so  much  more  profitable  that  one  wonders 
why  anyone  ever  undertakes  the  slow-growing  cocoa- 
nut  or  Haevia  Braziliensis.     But  it  must  not  be  for- 


CATCH    CROPS  179 

gotten  that  these  two  trees  make  a  life  provision,  and 
something  more,  for  their  cultivators,  whereas  hemp, 
cotton,  etc.,  only  last  a  short  time.  If  one  does  not 
care  to  keep  on  an  estate  indefinitely,  the  copra  or 
rubber  plantation  sells  for  a  high  figure,  since,  once 
made,  it  is  made  for  a  generation  or  more,  and  will 
go  on  producing  money  beyond  the  life  of  its  makers. 
This  is  the  real  value  of  rubber  and  copra. 

The  interval  of  waiting  is  of  course  a  serious  diffi- 
culty to  small  capitalists.  "  Catch  crops,"  however, 
can  be  made  use  of  to  lessen  the  expense.  There  is 
a  good  market  for  maize  in  the  Territory,  and  two 
crops  a  year  can  be  produced  almost  anywhere — in 
some  cases  three  or  four.  Bananas,  which  bear  in 
fifteen  months,  have  not  yet  been  grown  commer- 
cially in  Papua  ;  but  there  is  no  reason  why  they 
should  not  be  cultivated  in  the  coast  districts,  as  the 
monthly  steamers  can  take  them  to  the  Australian 
markets  without  transhipping.  Peanuts  and  millet 
pay  well  in  the  New  Hebrides,  and  should  do  well  in 
Papua  also  if  tried.  The  number  of  possible  catch 
crops  is  large,  but  the  nature  of  the  country  would  in 
most  cases  limit  choice  to  one  or  two.  With  good 
management  and  economy,  the  planter  should  be  able 
to  keep  himself  and  his  plantation  going  by  catch 
crops  during  the  whole  of  the  six  years.  As  regards 
rubber,  there  are  several  kinds  of  temporary  crops 
that  actually  benefit  the  young  tree,  since  it  demands 
a  good  deal  of  shade. 

The  native  rubber  of  Papua,  Ficns  rigOy  has  hardly 


i8o  THE   NEW    NEW   GUINEA 

received  the  attention  that  it  deserves.  It  has  some 
disadvantages,  the  chief  of  which  is  that  it  takes  a 
year  longer  to  come  into  bearing  than  the  Para,  and 
that  it  does  not  at  first  produce  so  much  rubber, 
though  what  it  does  produce  is  quite  as  valuable. 
But  it  can  be  grown  in  the  "  dry  belt,"  where  the 
climate  is  bright  and  comparatively  cool  almost  all  the 
year.  The  country  is  open  and  grassy,  and  clearing 
is  extremely  light.  This  dry  belt,  which  extends  for 
about  a  hundred  miles  along  the  coast  near  Port 
Moresby,  and  is  only  a  few  miles  wide,  is  eminently 
suited  to  the  Ficus  rigo.  One  planter  has  put  in  a 
good  many  acres,  but  as  this  variety  of  rubber  does 
not  bear  till  eight  years  old,  there  has  been  no  oppor- 
tunity of  seeing  what  can  be  done  with  it  on  a  large 
scale.  The  trees  on  this  plantation  look  extremely 
well,  and  require  little  care.  They  are  easier  to  plant 
and  rear  than  the  Para  rubber.  In  the  eighth  year  a 
Ficus  rigo  gives  about  half  to  three-quarters  of  a  pound 
of  rubber,  and  goes  on  increasing  in  yield  till  it  is 
fifteen  or  twenty  years  old,  by  which  time  a  healthy 
tree  should  be  producing  as  much  as  seven  or  eight 
pounds.  The  life  of  the  tree,  judging  by  the  wild 
specimens,  is  very  long,  some  rubber  trees  of  great 
but  unknown  age  being  quite  a  forest  in  themselves, 
and  covering  many  hundreds  of  feet  with  the  spread  of 
their  immense  branches. 

The  advantages  of  native  rubber  over  Para  may  be 
summed  up  in  a  few  words.  It  is  somewhat  cheaper 
to  plant  (exact  figures  cannot  be  given,  as  the  only 


A   SEA   VILLAGE  i8i 

native  rubber  that  has  been  planted  was  worked 
together  with  other  products).  It  flourishes  in  a  dry, 
bright  climate  and  in  open  country,  where  the  Para 
rubber  could  not  be  grown.  It  is  native  to  the  Terri- 
tory, and  therefore  more  resistant  in  all  probability  to 
any  form  of  parasite  or  disease  than  Para  would  be. 

Its  disadvantages  are  :  eight  years  before  tapping, 
as  against  six  years,  and  a  slightly  lesser  return  than 
the  Para  when  first  tapped. 

I  am  enabled  to  give  some  pictures  of  the  native 
rubber,  as  I  visited  the  plantation  where  it  is  being 
grown  together  with  sisal  hemp.  Several  planters 
have  taken  up  this  last  product,  which  seems  likely 
to  become  very  popular.  There  is  no  long  waiting 
for  returns,  as  the  hemp  bears  in  two  and  a  half 
years,  and  the  prices  obtained  are  very  paying. 

The  plantation  is  in  the  "dry  belt,"  about  three 
miles  from  the  sea. 

A  beautiful  little  sea  village  is  built  far  out  in  the 
water  near  the  landing-place.  It  belongs  to  the 
natives  of  the  coast,  and  is  inhabited  by  several 
hundred  people.  The  houses  are  not  connected  in 
any  way  with  the  shore,  but  stand  out  by  themselves 
in  the  clear  green  water  some  hundreds  of  yards 
from  the  beach.  They  are  built  on  strong  piles  about 
ten  feet  high,  with  ladders  reaching  up  to  the  doors 
and  verandahs  hanging  clear  out  over  the  cool  salt 
waves.  We  had  no  time  to  visit  the  village,  but  one 
could  easily  imagine  how  fresh  and  pleasant  the 
houses    must   be,  especially  in    the  trying  "  between 


1 82  THE   NEW   NEW    GUINEA 

seasons  "  period,  when  the  trade-wind  has  knocked 
off  work  and  the  monsoon  has  not  yet  begun,  the  air 
is  dark  with  heat,  and  the  mosquitoes  rival  the 
Plagues  of  Egypt  in  virulence.  The  architectural 
skill  shown  in  these  houses  is  remarkable.  Although 
sheltered  by  the  reef  from  actual  storms,  they  must  at 
times  experience  a  good  deal  of  bad  weather  ;  yet  all 
the  piles  stood  straight  and  firm  in  the  water,  and 
none  of  the  roofs  seemed  tilted.  One  wonders  how 
the  supports  were  ever  driven  deep  enough  by  a 
people  entirely  ignorant  of  all  but  the  roughest  tools. 
One  wonders  also  what  the  mortality  from  drowning 
may  be  among  the  babies  :  the  moated  granges  of 
Old  England,  which  must  have  been  such  a  source 
of  trouble  to  anxious  mothers,  were  nothing  com- 
pared with  the  water  villages  of  Papua. 

Once  landed,  we  had  an  exceedingly  enjoyable  walk 
up  a  grassy  avenue  three  miles  long  leading  to  the 
plantation.  The  avenue  was  bordered  with  graceful 
young  cocoanut  palms,  tall  flamboyant  trees  alight 
with  geranium-coloured  blooms,  white-flowered  aca- 
cias, kapok  or  silk-cotton  trees,  and  the  beautiful 
frangipani,  with  its  dark-green,  lance-shaped  leaves 
and  perfumed  creamy  flowers.  Grassy  plains  stretched 
away  to  left  and  right,  hemmed  in  by  distant  hills, 
while  in  front,  as  the  long  avenue  unwound,  the 
distance  began  to  show  blue-green  with  the  slopes 
and  levels  of  the  planted  hemp.  It  was  a  beautiful 
scene,  and  none  the  less  lovely  for  the  fact  that  all 
this    picturesqueness    had    cost    no    more    than    the 


A    HEMP    PLANTATION  183 

making  of  a  country  lane  in  England.  In  the  opulent 
tropics,  the  man  who  at  home  would  have  to  put  up 
with  a  semi-detached  villa  and  half  an  acre  of  clayey 
garden,  vacant  six  months  out  of  twelve,  can  be  master 
of  an  estate  more  beautiful  and  better  laid  out  than  a 
nobleman's  park. 

We  passed  through  the  hemp  plantation  before 
reaching  the  house — a  pretty  bungalow  on  the  peak 
of  a  hill,  reached  by  a  little  avenue  of  huge  hemp 
plants  set  in  borders.  Sisal  hemp  is  in  appearance 
like  the  aloe  that  flourishes  in  tubs  in  the  courtyards 
of  so  many  continental  hotels.  Set  out  in  the  end- 
less rows  of  a  plantation,  it  is  stiff,  quaint,  and 
picturesque,  and  its  glaucous  blue-green  colour  gives 
a  certain  coolness — often  illusory  enough — to  the 
landscape. 

The  planter  told  me  that  about  ^1500  would  clear, 
plant,  and  keep  up  a  plantation  of  100  acres,  in- 
cluding house,  living,  wages,  etc.,  until  the  plants 
bear  ;  but  it  would  be  well  to  contemplate  something 
beyond  this  sum  for  the  unforeseen,  such  as  illness, 
journeys,  etc.  The  life  of  the  hemp  plant  for  crops 
is  five  or  six  years  ;  it  is  ready  for  cutting  in  the 
third  year  from  planting.  The  supply  is  kept  up  by 
occasional  planting  in  between  the  first  rows. 

Looking  at  the  results  the  figures  certainly  seem 
attractive,  as  over  ^1500  can  be  expected  for  the  first 
year's  crop,  and  there  will  still  be  four  or  five  more 
crops  to  come  on,  while  the  capital  expenditure  has 
been    but   ;^2000.      The   preparing   of   the    fibre    is 


1 84  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

not  a  complicated  matter,  and  the  small  amount  of 
machinery  used  by  this  plantation  was  at  the  time 
of  my  visit  being  driven  by  a  Papuan  native  quite 
successfully. 

It  is  only  fair  to  state  that  in  hemp  as  well  as  in 
rubber  the  inquirer  sometimes  finds  theory  ahead  of 
fact  in  Papua.  No  one  has  yet  made  cent  per  cent 
on  his  capital  out  of  either  Haevia  Braziliensis  or 
Ficus  rigo.  The  figures  given  are  based  on  calcula- 
tions of  what  small  plantations  worked  by  men  of 
small  means  have  done  and  on  the  excellent  appear- 
ance of  the  coming  crops  on  the  larger  and  newer 
plantations.  If  a  score  or  two  of  fortunes  had  been 
made  in  the  country  (as  they  certainly  will  be  made 
in  the  next  few  years)  it  would  be  widely  known  and 
extensively  "  rushed,"  and  anything  that  the  present 
writer  could  tell  would  not  have  the  advantage  of 
novelty.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the 
wildest  estimates  as  to  possible  profits  on  hemp, 
rubber,  cocoanuts,  etc.,  are  current  in  many  parts  of 
Papua,  but  the  sensible  settler  will  take  these  for 
what  they  are  worth.  The  reality  seems  good  enough 
for  any  reasonable  person. 

A  good  many  small  islands,  mostly  about  the 
eastern  end  of  Papua,  have  been  taken  up  from  time 
to  time  by  various  people.  There  is  something 
perennially  attractive  to  the  Briton  in  the  idea  of  an 
island  of  his  own.  The  longing  finds  its  expression 
in  endless  songs,  in  half  the  stories  that  delight  the 
youth  of  the  country,  and  in  the  rush  of  purchasers 


CORAL    ISLANDS  185 

that  always  follows  the  rare  advertisements  of  islands 
for  sale  about  the  English  or  Scottish  coasts.  Settlers 
anxious  to  find  an  island  home  in  the  Pacific  are 
known  to  every  Australasian  steamship  company,  and 
some  of  (hem  find  their  way  to  Papua. 

There  is  plenty  of  choice  for  the  would-be  island 
king  about  the  immense  coasts  of  the  Territory,  but 
one  cannot  conscientiously  recommend  island  life  in 
Papua  for  anyone  but  the  hermit  or  the  crank.  The 
coral  isles  of  the  poet's  dream  are  indeed  here,  but 
the  South  Sea  atmosphere  is  not.  The  attractive, 
well-mannered  native  of  Polynesia  is  here  replaced  by 
the  Stone  Age  savage,  or  by  no  one  at  all,  many  of 
the  islands  being  quite  uninhabited,  and  a  good  many 
of  them  are  so  far  removed  from  the  mainland  as  to 
be  useless  to  anyone  who  does  not  want  to  cut  himself 
off  from  his  kind  for  life. 

But  of  these  islands  I  shall  have  more  to  say  later 
on. 

So  far,  the  planters  of  Papua  have  confined  their 
energies  to  the  production  of  coffee,  copra,  rubber, 
and  hemp.  There  are  many  other  tropical  products 
that  would  pay  equally  well,  but  all  is  so  new  and  so 
untried  in  this  first  colony  of  a  colony  that  the 
industries  of  the  place  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have 
found  their  feet. 

Cotton  has  been  experimentally  tried  and  proved 
to  be  of  very  fine  quality.  A  number  of  spices  and 
drugs  have  been  grown  in  the  Government  nurseries 
with  good  results.     Few   planters  so  much  as  think 


1 86  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

of  drugs  or  spices,  but  they  have  their  good  points, 
not  among  the  least  of  which  is  comparative  smaUness 
of  bulk.  This  saves  a  great  deal  of  expense  in 
transit,  and  in  the  case  of  certain  drugs  even  allows 
the  grower  to  dispose  of  his  produce  by  parcel 
post. 

In  the  near  future  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
sugar  will  take  a  place  superior  in  importance  to  that 
of  rubber,  copra,  or  fibres. 

Papua  is  pre-eminently,  by  nature,  the  sugar 
country  of  the  south.  Sugar-cane  grows  wild  all 
over  the  Territory,  from  sea-level  up  to  6000  feet  of 
altitude  ;  and  its  quality,  even  in  a  natural  state,  is 
so  high  that  planters  in  Fiji  and  Queensland  con- 
stantly send  to  the  country  for  cuttings.  One  agent 
lately  sent  out  by  a  well-known  sugar-growing  com- 
pany succeeded  in  obtaining  over  200  varieties  of 
cane,  nearly  all  of  them  new.  A  visitor  who  had 
been  in  charge  of  a  large  Queensland  plantation  gave 
it  as  his  opinion  that  much  of  Papua  was  ahead  of 
the  famous  Johnson  River  sugar-growing  country, 
and  would  produce  record  crops  if  planted.  In  the 
north-eastern  division  there  are  hundreds  of  square 
miles  of  open,  well-watered  country,  fit  to  grow  the 
finest  cane  in  the  world,  that  have  never  so  much  as 
been  seen  by  a  white  man,  with  the  exception  of  the 
Resident  Magistrate,  who  patrols  the  district  at  inter- 
vals of  a  few  months.  None  of  it  is  occupied  or 
needed  by  the  natives,  and  most  of  it  is  within  easy 
reach  of  the  coast.     This  district  is  sure  to  be  among 


SUGAR-CANE  187 

the  first  taken  up  when  the  sugar  industry  gets  a  fair 
start. 

Sugar,  however,  is  one  of  the  things  that  do  not 
concern  the  individual  planter.  It  requires  capital 
running  into  many  thousands  to  start  a  business  of 
this  kind,  and  companies  are  needed  to  furnish  the 
money.  Nor  need  the  canny  speculator  hope  to 
"grab"  large  districts  in  the  sugar  country  and  hold 
them  until  they  become  valuable,  for  the  land  laws 
of  Papua  have  been  framed  with  the  object  of  nipping 
just  such  brilliant  ideas  as  these  in  the  bud.  Land 
cannot  be  held  unless  it  is  improved  ;  the  speculator 
who  tries  to  block  large  areas  for  his  own  purposes 
will  find  himself  obliged  to  make  way  for  someone 
with  less  desire  for  the  "  unearned  increment  "  and 
more  inclination  towards  hard  work.  Nor  can  any- 
one take  up  more  than  a  limited  amount  of  land, 
10,000  acres  being  the  most  allowed  to  one  person. 
If  these  regulations  are  at  times  harassing  to  the 
company  promoter,  especially  to  the  speculative  type 
that  makes  its  profits  at  the  expense  of  the  share- 
holders, they  are  protective  to  the  individual  worker, 
and  it  is,  after  all,  the  man  with  a  moderate  capital 
and  a  hard-working  disposition  who  does  the  making 
of  new  countries. 

Several  companies  have  taken  up  land  in  Papua  for 
rubber,  copra,  and  hemp-growing,  and  are  understood 
to  be  doing  very  well.  The  Government  is  not  "  down 
on  "  the  company  promoter  who  is  prepared  to  de- 
velop    his    holding    in    a    reasonable    time    and    to 


1 88  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

acquiesce  in  local  labour  conditions  and  laws.  New 
countries  need  the  company  as  well  as  the  private 
individual  to  set  the  wheels  going.  But  it  is  certain 
that  in  Papua,  at  all  events,  there  will  be  no  money- 
made  by  locking  up  lands,  whether  it  is  an  association 
or  an  individual  that  attempts  to  do  the  locking. 

This  is  a  detail  that  carries  small  significance  to  an 
Englishman.  It  carries  much  more  to  an  Australian, 
since  the  greatest  social  difficulty  that  Australia  has 
at  present  to  face  is  this  very  problem  of  locked-up 
lands.  Large  areas  of  highly  productive  land  taken 
up  by  the  early  settlers  were  held  for  generations  as 
sheep  and  cattle  runs  or  left  unused,  and  have  now 
to  be  bought  back  by  the  Government  at  high  prices 
and  subdivided  among  a  crowd  of  eager  settlers. 
This  is  a  difficulty  that  only  affects  some  of  the 
States,  but  nevertheless  the  inconvenience  and  expense 
have  been  serious  enough  to  make  Australians  shy  of 
incurring  a  repetition  in  the  new  colony  where  all 
things  are  possible.  The  new  land  laws  of  Papua  are 
the  work  of  the  present  Lieutenant-Governor,  who 
belongs  to  New  South  Wales,  a  State  that  has  suffered 
more  than  others  from  "  locking-up  "  troubles. 

In  a  chapter  devoted  to  the  industries  of  Papua  it 
would  be  impossible  to  omit  the  timber  trade, 
although  nothing  has  been  heard  of  it  as  yet  outside 
the  colony.  Indeed,  one  might  almost  say  that  so 
far  the  timber  trade  does  not  exist.  A  good  deal  of 
land  has  been  taken  up  and  some  clearing  done,  but 
sawmills  have  not  at  the  time  of  writing  been  intro- 


TIMBER   OF    PAPUA  189 

duced  (with  the  exception  of  two  small  mills  used  by 
the  missions),  and  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  make 
money  out  of  Papuan  timber  if  it  cannot  be  cut  up 
on  the  spot,  as  freights  are  rather  high.  Still,  the 
hopes  of  the  industry  are  rose-coloured.  The  amount 
of  good  timber  is  unlimited,  most  of  it  is  very  easily 
got  at,  and  the  sale  even  in  Papua  may  be  depended 
on  as  large  and  constant. 

One  of  the  Government  Forest  Inspectors  of 
Queensland  was  lately  sent  up  to  Papua  to  report  on 
the  timbers  by  the  Commonwealth  authorities.  His 
account,  compiled  after  many  months  of  travel  and 
investigation,  spoke  in  the  highest  terms  of  the  value 
and  variety  of  Papuan  woods.  Among  those  specially 
noted  were  sixteen  varieties  suitable  for  beams, 
girders,  railway  waggons,  or  other  positions  in  which 
a  heavy  strain  is  encountered  ;  ten  suitable  for  car- 
riage building  ;  fifteen  suitable  for  joinery,  lining, 
and  flooring  ;  and  fourteen  woods  of  great  beauty, 
suited  to  furniture  and  cabinet  work.  The  cedar  of 
the  country  is  exceptionally  well  fitted  for  boat- 
building, and  one  of  the  canoe  woods,  the  "  ilimo," 
found  up  to  five  or  six  feet  in  diameter,  would  prob- 
ably be  valuable  to  yacht  builders,  from  its  notable 
lightness  and  strength.  The  "  mahia,"  the  '*  ohabu," 
and  the  "  oma  "  are  also  good  boat-building  woods. 
The  "  kasi-kasi,"  "  porou,"  "  mariau,"  and  "togara" 
have  the  very  valuable  property  of  being  incorrodible 
in  water  and  resistant  to  the  attacks  of  marine  insects. 
They  have  been  used  for  piles  with  much   success. 


I90  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

Very  many  of  the  hardwoods  are  reported  as  suitable 
for  sleepers  and  street  paving  blocks.  There  is  plenty 
of  cedar  to  be  had  ;  the  sandalwood  is  almost  used  up, 
but  some  still  remains.  Woods  resembling  mahog- 
any, rosewood,  satinwood  ;  woods  that  are  dark  red 
or  deep  yellow  in  colour,  full  of  natural  oils,  hard 
almost  as  iron,  and  so  heavy  as  to  sink  in  water,  fine 
and  firm  of  grain  as  box,  light  and  tough  as  pine,  are 
to  be  found  among  the  treasures  of  the  forests.  There 
are  also  many  woods  that  are  known  to  produce  dyes 
and  gums,  but  it  is  not  yet  known  what  their  com- 
mercial value  may  be. 

At  the  present  time,  anyone  who  likes  is  at  liberty 
to  cut  and  carry  away  these  valuable  woods  for  prac- 
tically nothing.  The  charge  made  by  the  Govern- 
ment for  the  use  of  timber  lands — los.  per  loo  acres 
— is  only  intended  to  prevent  anyone  taking  up  more 
land  than  he  can  make  use  of.  There  is  a  regulation 
obliging  every  lessee  of  timber  areas  to  put  up  a  saw- 
mill within  a  reasonable  period  ;  but  this  is  what  the 
timber  speculator  would  naturally  wish  to  do  in  his 
own  interests. 

It  is  impossible  to  say  what  any  man  might  make 
out  of  the  almost  untouched  timbers  of  Papua, 
because  no  one  has  as  yet  made  a  fair  trial.  But 
certain  facts  speak  for  themselves. 

Australian  timbers  are  being  so  rapidly  worked  out 
that  material  for  building  is  in  some  cases  beginning 
to  run  short.  It  must  be  remembered  that  wood,  not 
brick  or  stone,  is  the  chief  building  material  of  all 


^^ 


FORTUNES   WAITING  191 

Australasia  outside  the  towns,  and  that  this  creates  an 
enormous  and  constant  demand.  Papua— at  one 
point  only  ninety  miles  from  the  Australian  continent 
— is  in  an  excellent  position  to  satisfy  this  demand. 
At  the  present  moment,  however,  sawn  timber  is 
actually  being  imported  into  Papua  from  Australia  at 
very  high  prices  for  building  purposes,  because  as  yet 
the  local  supply  cannot  be  got  at.  Without  sawmills, 
the  immense  virgin  forests  arc  as  useless  as  so  much 
grass,  although  they  lie  right  along  the  course  of  all 
the  great  rivers,  in  many  cases  so  close  up  that  the 
timber-getter  has  nothing  to  do  but  cut  his  trees  and 
let  them  drop  into  the  stream,  where  they  will  be 
floated  to  the  sea. 

This  curious  condition  of  affairs — a  country  rich  in 
timber  buying  it  at  a  high  price  from  a  country  which 
is  beginning  to  run  short — cannot  in  the  nature  of 
thinofs  last  much  lon^rer.  There  are  several  fortunes 
waiting  for  the  people  who  first  bring  about  a  change. 
In  the  present  quickly  developing  state  of  the  country 
all  the  sawn  timber  available  will  be  taken  up  by  local 
needs  for  a  good  while  to  come  ;  but  there  are  still 
greater  possibilities  in  the  future,  when  the  huge 
forests  are  really  opened  up  and  Papua  becomes,  as  it 
undoubtedly  will,  the  chief  source  of  supply  for  the 
paving,  carpentering,  and  paper-making  needs  of  the 
Australasian  world. 

The  gold  mines  of  Papua  have  had  much  to  do 
with  the  history  of  the  colony.  It  is  an  open  ques- 
tion whether  Papua  owes  them   more  of  good  or  ot 


192  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

ill.  On  the  one  side,  it  may  be  said  that  the  miners 
and  prospectors  drew  attention  to  the  country, 
that  they  have  done  a  great  deal  of  valuable  exploring 
work,  and  that  they  provide  the  greater  part  of  the 
revenues.  On  the  other  must  be  set  the  count  that 
the  enormous  death-rate  on  the  fields  in  the  days  of 
the  early  rushes — a  death-rate  not  by  any  means  all 
due  to  climatic  influences — gave  the  country  a  bad 
name,  from  which  it  has  not  even  yet  recovered.  If 
Papua  has  been,  and  is,  described  as  "  The  White 
Man's  Grave  " — if  insurance  companies  fight  shy  of 
it  and  Government  clerks  going  to  take  up  a  place  in 
the  Port  Moresby  offices  are  seen  off  by  weeping 
friends  who  count  them  as  good  as  dead — it  is  very 
largely  due  to  the  horrors  of  the  early  mining  days. 
In  the  eighties  and  nineties  men  died  like  flies  in  the 
steaming  forests  of  Woodlark  and  up  the  wild,  inac- 
cessible rivers  of  the  mainland,  hunting  for  the  gold 
that  could  not  bring  them  a  minute's  longer  life  once 
the  fever  fiend  had  laid  good  hold  of  their  enfeebled 
bodies. 

Want  of  proper  food,  absence  of  decent  lodging, 
neglect  of  precautions  against  chill,  against  mosqui- 
toes, against  sun  and  rain,  had  quite  as  much  to 
do  with  the  terrible  mortality  among  the  early 
miners  as  the  fevers  themselves.  The  general  public, 
however,  did  not  discriminate,  and  the  tale  of  horror 
that  came  down  from  the  Yodda,  the  Mambare,  and 
other  well-known  fields  were  applied  equally  to  Port 
Moresby,  where  white  people  enjoy  excellent  health. 


MINING   INDUSTRY  193 

or  to  Samarai,  from  which  fever  has  been  completely 
weeded  out. 

Health  on  the  goldfields  is  now  quite  satisfactory. 
Fever,  it  is  true,  is  not  unknown,  but  it  is  not  of  a 
bad  type,  and  will  probably  disappear  when  the  food 
supply  is  improved. 

But  the  effect  of  the  early  death-rate  will  hamper 
the  country  for  many  a  long  day  yet.  The  public  is 
loth  to  relinquish  its  horrors,  and  a  New  Guinea 
where  sensational  and  startling  fevers  do  not  carry  off 
half  the  population  every  year  seems  flat  and  uninter- 
esting compared  with  the  lurid  country  of  the  stay-at- 
home  imagination. 

The  mining  interest  is  to  the  full  as  important  as 
the  planter  interest  at  the  time  of  writing.  Papua  is 
a  country  exceedingly  rich  in  valuable  minerals.  Gold 
has  been  sought,  and  successfully,  for  more  than 
twenty  years.  Copper  exists  in  large  and  paying 
fields.  Other  minerals  are  known  to  exist,  but  have 
not  been  prospected  for.  Coal  has  lately  been  dis- 
covered. The  mining  industry,  however,  is  severely 
handicapped  by  want  of  capital.  All  the  gold  hitherto 
found  on  the  mainland  is  alluvial;  reef  gold  is  known 
to  exist,  but  prospecting  is  costly  work  in  a  country 
of  extremely  rugged  conformation  covered  with  dense 
forest.  At  all  the  mining  centres  one  hears  the  same 
story — excellent  possibilities,  but  not  money  enough 
to  attain  them.  The  beds  of  some  of  the  rivers  are 
known  to  contain  gold  in  large  quantities,  but  the 
strong  currents  and  numerous  rapids  have  prevented 
o 


194  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

any  attempts  at  dredging,  which  is  at  best  a  costly 
process.  Gold  has  been  taken  in  moderate  quantities 
from  Woodlark  Island  for  many  years,  and  of  late  a 
small  company  has  done  some  reef  mining.  There 
remains  a  rich  underlying  bed,  which  is,  however,  too 
deep  to  get  at  without  serious  expenditure,  and  no 
one  seems  anxious  to  expend.  New  Guinea  is  too 
far  away  ;  it  has  a  bad  reputation  ;  there  are  plenty 
of  established  and  well-paying  mines  in  Australia.  So 
the  capitalist  says.  In  the  meantime  the  gold  lies 
there  ungetatable. 

There  were  162  white  miners  in  the  country 
during  1907-8,  employing  over  a  thousand  native 
labourers  (in  Papua  the  miner  does  not  do  his  own 
digging,  but  employs  a  number  of  indentured  "boys"). 
The  value  of  gold  cleared  was  only  about  ;^52,ooo, 
but  there  is  good  reason  to  think  that  at  least  as 
much  again  was  actually  obtained.  This  sum  was  of 
course  very  irregularly  distributed,  some  men  making 
a  great  deal,  and  others  again  very  little.  Mining  in 
Papua  is  rather  a  costly  business.  The  best  paying 
fields  are  for  the  most  part  many  days'  journey  into 
the  interior,  and  the  interior  cannot  be  reached  with- 
out a  train  of  carriers,  an  outfit  of  tents  and  camping 
apparatus,  and  a  supply  of  food  enough  for  a  good 
many  people  during  the  march  out  and  back.  Much 
of  the  loss  of  life  among  the  old  prospectors  was  due 
to  the  fact  that  they  insisted  on  treating  New  Guinea 
like  Australia,  and  started  out  up  the  deadly 
Mambare    River   or    into    the    Louisiade   bush    with 


COPPER    FIELDS  195 

scarce   any   outfit   beyond    the   traditional    swag    and 
billycan. 

All  said,  however,  the  miners  continue  to  make  a 
fair  living  out  of  their  occupation,  and  many  of 
them  believe  that  it  can  only  be  a  question  of  time 
until  rich  discoveries  are  made.  A  gold  rush  to 
Papua  is  no  new  thing,  but  the  next  (so  the  miners 
say)  will  be  better  justified  than  those  of  1889  and 
1896. 

The  reports  of  the  copper  fields  arc,  of  course, 
"very  encouraging,"  after  the  manner  of  mining 
reports  all  the  world  over.  There  is,  however,  solid 
fact  at  the  back  of  the  encouragement.  Not  to  trouble 
the  non-mining  reader  with  technicalities,  it  may  be 
briefly  said  that  the  copper  in  Papua  is  of  a  quality 
that  pays  excellently  in  Australia,  but  that  does  not 
pay  in  the  country  for  want  of  smelting  plant.  No 
matter  how  rich  your  ore  may  be,  it  is  scarcely  a 
profitable  business  to  ship  it  at  high  rates  of  freight 
to  another  country  and  pay  someone  else  a  good  deal 
to  extract  the  metal  when  the  whole  operation  could 
and  should  be  done  at  the  mouth  of  the  mine.  By 
the  time  these  lines  are  in  print,  however,  it  is  prob- 
able that  the  want  will  have  been  remedied. 

The  copper  fields  are  within  a  few  miles  of  Port 
Moresby,  upon  the  one  good  road  which  the  country 
boasts.  Many  claims  have  been  taken  up,  mosdy  by 
people  who  cannot  afford  to  work  them,  but  a  good 
deal  more  remains  to  be  found  and  taken  posses- 
sion of  in   the  surrounding  country.      A  curious  and 


196  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

certainly  an  easy  method  of  prospecting  has  been 
employed  by  one  or  two  residents  of  the  country. 
The  Papuan  native,  like  most  savages,  is  very  ob- 
servant, even  of  things  that  he  does  not  understand. 
If  you  give  him  a  lump  of  copper  ore  and  promise 
him  a  pound  of  stick  tobacco  for  any  more  that  he 
can  pick  up  about  the  hills  or  in  the  bush,  he  will  find 
copper  for  you,  should  there  be  any  within  tramp- 
ing distance  of  where  he  lives.  Some  of  the  Port 
Moresby  natives,  who  have  keen  trading  and  money- 
making  instincts,  have  in  this  way  learned  to  prospect 
for  themselves,  and  more  than  one  native  has  made 
a  good  deal  out  of  his  mining  rights  by  selling  them 
to  white  speculators. 

Take  it  all  in  all,  the  mineral  wealth  of  Papua  is 
enough  to  furnish  very  good  opportunities  of  money- 
making  to  any  man  with  a  thousand  or  two  to  spend, 
but  it  is  more  immediately  profitable  and  safer  to 
develop  existing  discoveries  than  to  go  prospecting 
after  new  ones.  This  is  not  likely  to  deter  the  man 
who  loves  change,  chance,  and  adventure  from  going 
gold-hunting.  The  possible  prizes  of  the  gold- 
hunter  are  great,  and  of  adventure  and  discovery  he 
will  have  enough  to  satisfy  Marco  Polo  himself. 
There  is  not  a  miner  in  the  country  who  cannot  tell 
you  of  a  gold-bearing  district  that  is  still  unpro- 
spected — perhaps  actually  unvisited,  its  auriferous 
qualities  being  guessed  by  the  appearance  of  the  sur- 
rounding country.  The  Government,  which  has 
rather  more  than  enough  to  do  with  its  small  income 


PROSPECTORS'    DIFFICULTIES       197 

as  things  are,  yet  manages  to  squeeze  out  a  few 
hundreds  occasionally  for  prospecting  work  and  to 
keep  a  reward  standing  of  £1000  for  the  discovery 
of  a  new  field.  To  go  and  hunt  up  possible  gold- 
fields  in  Papua  costs  anything  from  ^^500  or  ;^6oo 
upwards  after  landing  at  Port  Moresby  or  Samarai. 
Experienced  prospectors,  wise  in  everything  but  the 
art  of  keeping  their  gold  when  they  find  it,  are 
always  ready  to  guide  a  trip  of  the  kind.  Prospect- 
ing and  exploring  are  inextricably  mixed  up  in  Papua; 
the  gold-seeker  is  sure  to  find  a  new  tribe  or  two, 
a  mountain  that  nobody  has  seen,  a  branch  or  source 
of  some  great  river — one  cannot  say  what  the  sur- 
prises of  the  interior  may  be.  As  a  rule,  the 
prospector  passes  these  things  over  with  simple  con- 
tempt. He  has  no  use  for  them — you  cannot  eat  a 
mountain  range  if  your  boys  are  short  of  food,  and 
rivers  that  deposit  no  gold  upon  their  shores  are  mere 
nuisances.  .  .  .  When  one  thinks  of  the  medals 
and  the  fellowships  and  the  lectures  and  the  inter- 
views claimed  and  given  by  men  who  have  followed 
up  a  new  bit  of  an  old  river  through  a  valley  that  not 
quite  everyone  knows,  or  climbed  an  unknown  in- 
ferior peak  of  a  mountain  whose  main  crest  has  been 
worn  by  the  feet  of  travellers  for  generations,  one 
wonders  at  the  modesty  of  many  of  these  miner- 
explorers.  Nothing  stops  them  in  the  search  for 
gold.  There  is  a  perpendicular  cliff"  300  feet  high, 
shutting  in  the  end  of  a  river  valley  in  the  far 
interior,    which    is    garlanded    to    this    day  with   the 


198  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

decaying  vestiges  of  a  ladder  made  of  wild  vines  and 
lawyer  cane,  put  up  by  a  hardy  band  of  pioneers  who 
wanted  to  get  to  the  end  of  the  valley  and  did  not 
see  why  a  trifle  of  that  kind  should  prevent  them. 
It  is  on  record  that  the  ladder  remained  in  its  place 
for  a  long  time,  being  used  as  a  road  by  miners 
travelling  to  and  fro,  and  that  a  certain  prospector, 
travelling  thither  from  easier  countries,  was  exceed- 
ingly grieved  when  he  saw  it,  insomuch  that  he 
turned  back  and  went  home  again,  declaring  that 
a  place  where  they  called  that  thing  "  a  road  "  was  no 
place  for  him. 

So  much,  then,  for  the  money-making  possibilities 
of  Papua.  If  some  of  my  readers  have  found  this 
chapter  a  little  dry  I  do  not  apologize  to  them,  since 
it  is  open  to  every  man  to  skip  what  he  does  not  care 
for.  Others,  I  know,  will  have  read  it  with  interest, 
for  the  pioneering  spirit  yet  runs  strong  in  the  English 
race,  and  keys  to  open  the  doors  to  a  wider  and  freer 
life  than  that  of  our  own  safe  and  comfortable  little 
islands  are  eagerly  sought  by  many. 


CHAPTER  VI 

The  wizard  and  the  crocodile — Training  for  sorcery — The  Great  Fly 
River — To  Thursday  Island — The  pearl  fishers — "  Walking  alone 
in  the  depths  of  the  sea  " — Wicked  Goari-Bari — Willie  and  the 
soap — The  scene  of  Chalmers'  murder — A  bit  of  boiled  man — 
The  rescue  of  Chalmers'  bones — The  incredible  West — Very 
nearly  an  adventure — The  hysterical  man-eaters — Order  of  the 
Imperial  Shirt — The  loyalty  of  Kaimari. 

TN    Papua,   when   you   see    two   or  three  residents 
talking  together,  you  may  safely  guess   that   one 
of  three  subjects  occupies  their  attention — crocodiles, 
sorcery,  or  the  Merrie  England. 

I  do  not  know  why  one  talks  so  much  about  croco- 
diles. The  number  of  white  men  known  to  have 
been  taken  by  them  could  be  counted  on  the  fingers 
of  one  hand.  They  are  very  seldom  seen,  although 
there  the  waters  of  rivers  and  seas  alike  are  infested 
with  them.  They  do  not  damage  the  crops,  and 
seldom  eat  a  labourer.  Nevertheless  the  interest 
taken  by  the  white  resident  of  Papua  in  the  crocodile 
is  little  short  of  passionate.  In  the  absence  of  daily 
papers,  the  latest  crocodile  gossip  is  retailed  from 
mouth  to  mouth,  and  the  movements  of  any  well- 
known  specimen  are  canvassed  like  those  of  British 
royalty.  The  twenty-footer  that  came  ashore  at  two 
in    the    mornino:    under    the    houses    of   Hanuabada 

199 


200  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

village,  glittering  with  green  phosphorescence,  and 
grabbed  a  native  dog  ;  the  monster  that  was  seen 
tearing  a  dead  mule  to  pieces  in  the  shallow  of  the 
swamp  by  the  shooting  butts  ;  even  the  black  oily 
streak  that  was  seen  crossing  the  bay  yesterday  morn- 
ing, are  discussed  with  every  variety  of  detail.  A 
crocodile  is  seen  in  the  distance,  out  at  sea,  swimming 
along  with  a  pig  in  its  jaws,  and  the  whole  of  the 
capital  musters  on  the  jetty,  rifle  in  hand,  as  though 
the  safety  of  their  verandahs  and  homes  (one  does 
not  have  hearths  in  Papua)  trembled  in  the  balance. 
The  crocodile  is  fired  at  a  dozen  times  and  very 
much  frightened,  drops  its  well-earned  dinner,  and 
dives  below.  Half  a  dozen  amateur  Tells  claim  the 
credit  of  the  deed  ;  the  dead  and  mangled  pig  comes 
ashore  in  the  afternoon  of  the  next  day,  rather 
"  high,"  and  the  armed  native  constabulary  banquet 
upon  it.  .  .  .  The  incident  provides  gossip  for  a 
week. 

If  crocodiles  are  not  the  subject  of  conversation, 
the  latest  cases  of  sorcery  no  doubt  occupy  the  field. 
Sorcery  is  in  the  very  air  of  Papua.  Your  cook-boy 
will  probably  explain  an  unauthorised  absence  by  the 
excuse  that  the  sorcerer  who  lives  next  door  put  a 
spell  on  him  so  that  he  could  not  go  out  of  the 
house.  The  little  brown  lady  in  a  brief  frilled  skirt 
and  nothing  else  who  does  your  washing  will  tell  you 
quite  calmly,  when  you  ask  how  she  came  by  a 
deformed  shin-bone,  that  she  met  a  "  spilit  stop  long 
bush  "  (apparition  walking  in  the  forest),  whom  she 


SORCERY  20I 

judged  to  be  a  disembodied  s(3rcerer  of  great  power, 
since  his  mere  look  at  her  bent  her  leg  almost  in  two 
.  ,  .  and  there  is  the  leg  to  prove  it.  The  highly 
intelligent  mission-trained  youth  who  "  does  out  the 
rooms"  in  your  friend's  bungalow  will  give  notice 
and  retreat  to  his  palm  shanty  in  the  bush  because 
his  master  showed  him  a  conjuring  trick  of  the  six-in- 
a-box-for-a-shilling  kind,  and  he  is  quite  certain  that 
the  Taubada  (chief)  was  practising  sorcery  on  him. 
It  is  not  by  any  means  a  joke,  this  question  of  sorcery. 
The  Government  recognises  it  as  a  crime,  and  pun- 
ishes it  by  a  long  term  of  imprisonment — ^justly,  too, 
since  the  sorcerer  is  almost  always  a  murderer  as  well, 
and  the  practice  of  sorcery,  with  its  attendant  petty 
tyrannies,  cruelties,  and  extortion,  does  more  than 
anything  else  to  keep  the  native  in  a  state  ot 
savagery. 

The  Psychical  Research  Society  would  have  its 
hands  full  in  Papua.  Nearly  all  the  well-known 
though  rare  phenomena  which  exercise  the  attention 
of  the  members  in  England  flourish  in  wild  luxuri- 
ance among  the  Papuans.  Spirit-rapping,  as  I  have 
already  said,  is  common  both  among  the  Purari  tribes 
and  elsewhere.  Ghosts  are  constantly  seen,  being 
variously  described  as  men,  as  indefinite  "  debil- 
debils,"  and  as  white  or  blue  lights  hovering  above 
the  surface  of  the  ground.  The  sorcerers  claim  power 
to  raise  the  dead,  and  the  natives  are  quite  convinced 
that  they  do.  In  connection  with  this  it  may  be 
interesting  to  give  an  illustration. 


202  THE   NEW    NEW   GUINEA 

I  had  been  some  weeks  in  Port  Moresby,  and  was 
anxious  if  possible  to  see  something  of  the  sorcerers' 
powers.  Two  retired  practitioners  of  wide  reputa- 
tion were  induced  to  come  up  on  to  the  verandah  of 
the  house  where  I  was  staying  and  give  an  exhibition 
of  their  feats,  being  first  assured  that  the  Government 
had  granted  leave.  They  said  that  they  would  kill 
something  and  bring  it  to  life  again — a  dog  or  a  cat, 
or  anything  I  wished. 

I  suggested  a  lizard,  knowing  the  cruel  nature  of 
the  Papuan,  and  judging  that  they  were  less  likely  to 
mis-handle  an  insensitive  cold-blooded  reptile  than 
a  lively  dog.  The  sorcerers — two  middle-aged  men 
with  dark  sly  faces — disappeared  among  the  cook- 
house buildings  at  the  back,  and  returned  with  a 
small  lizard,  recently  killed,  and  still  warm.  It 
seemed  to  have  been  put  an  end  to  by  a  blow,  as  it 
was  not  outwardly  injured.  The  sorcerers  squatted 
down  on  the  floor  with  the  lizard  lying  between  them, 
and  began  stroking  it  with  their  finger-tips,  much  as 
if  they  were  trying  to  mesmerise  it.  They  continued 
doing  this  for  some  time,  muttering  to  themselves 
and  breathing  hard.  At  the  end  of  a  few  minutes 
they  sat  up  and  declared  the  charm  would  not  work. 
It  was  not  their  fault,  they  said — they  had  not  done 
any  sorcery  for  a  long  time,  and  were  out  of  training. 
To  be  sure  of  success  they  should  have  trained  for  a 
week  at  least. 

How  did  they  train  ?  I  asked. 

They  practised  various  ceremonies,  it  seemed,  and 


GINGER    MAGIC  203 

they  ate  a  great  deal  of  wild  ginger.  There  was  nothing 
like  ginger  for  giving  you  magic  powers. 

The  cook-boy  said  that  this  was  undeniably  true,  for 
if  you  tied  ginger  on  your  gun  when  going  out  to 
shoot  wallaby  or  alligators,  it  was  much  more  likely 
to  shoot  straight.  Also,  when  they  wanted  to  make 
their  dogs  run  very  fast  they  put  ginger  down  the 
animals'  throats. 

The  connection  between  cause  and  effect  here  did 
not  seem  to  require  magic  to  help  it  out ;  however,  I 
let  it  pass  without  comment,  as  I  wanted  to  hear 
some  more.  But  the  cook-boy  had  a  roast  of  kangaroo 
to  attend  to,  so  he  went  away,  as  the  amusement  of 
the  morning  seemed  over. 

The  sorcerers  gathered  themselves  up,  accepted 
a  gift  of  tobacco,  and  went  off  to  the  village.  It 
seemed  as  if  the  experiment  had  been  a  complete 
failure,  and  yet 

And  yet — I  remembered  that  the  two  old  villains 
looked  genuinely  and  unmistakably  disappointed 
when  the  lizard  did  not  revive.  Nothing  was  clearer 
than  the  fact  that  they  thought  it  would.  I  did  not 
suppose  that  the  Papuan  sorcerer  possessed  any  power 
over  the  mysteries  of  life  and  death,  still 

What  about  anaesthetics  .''  The  tale  of  the  man 
who  was  killed  and  brought  to  life  again  by  the  local 
sorcerer  is  one  of  the  commonest  *'  yarns  "  of  a  New 
Guinea  village.  In  nineteen  cases  out  of  twenty  it 
is  probably  untrue.  There  may  be  something  in  the 
twentieth,  and  that  something  may  be  the  use  of  a 


204  THE    NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

native    anaesthetic,     not    known    to    the    people    in 
general. 

In  any  case,  the  incident  added  to  the  material 
available  for  the  three  subjects  of  local  conversation. 
And  this  brings  me  to  the  third — the  Merrie  England. 

If  no  one  is  discussing  alligator  gossip  or  retailing 
spicy  bits  of  sorcery,  the  Government  steam  yacht  is 
sure  to  be  the  subject  of  conversation.  The  regular 
mail  boats,  which  come  up  from  Australia  at  intervals 
of  about  three  weeks,  do  not  furnish  much  food  for 
talk,  as  everyone  knows  just  what  they  are  going  to 
do.  But  the  Merrie  England  may  go  anywhere  and 
do  anything.  She  runs  down  the  coast  to  punish  a 
cannibal  raid  in  the  "  Wild  West  "  ;  she  goes  to  chase 
a  Jap  schooner  that  has  been  poaching  about  the  pearl 
fisheries  ;  she  takes  stores  to  a  far-out  station,  or  lays 
buoys  along  a  dangerous  passage  in  the  coral  reef 
near  a  port,  or  runs  suddenly  south  to  Thursday 
Island  with  despatches,  or  brings  a  party  of  explorers 
to  their  '*jumping-ofF  place"  and  bids  them  good 
luck  and  good-bye.  She  is  a  man-of-war,  a  passenger 
steamer,  a  cargo  tramp,  a  Court  of  Justice,  and  a 
Government  House.  Trials  are  held  in  her  saloon, 
meetings  of  the  Legislative  Council — Papua's  Parlia- 
ment— take  place  there  ;  the  Governor  and  his 
modest  suite  of  two  private  secretaries,  six  native 
boatmen,  and  a  couple  of  Papuan  valets  spend  more 
time  on  the  yacht  than  in  the  house  with  the  Union 
Jack  flying  above,  outside  Port  Moresby.  The  Merrie 
England  carries  mails,  brings  news,  transfers  officials, 


AT   DARU  205 

and  incidentally  gives  everyone  something  to  talk 
about  most  of  the  time — an  incalculable  boon  in 
an  isolated  colony  with  mails  three  weeks  apart. 

She  is  a  handsome  little  ship,  some  190  tons 
register,  built  originally  as  a  sailing  yacht  and  later 
converted  to  a  steamer.  She  has  been  twenty  years 
at  work  about  the  Territory,  but  is  still  going  well. 
It  was  inevitable  that  I  should  make  her  acquaintance 
sooner  or  later,  and  indeed  it  was  not  many  weeks 
after  my  arrival  that  I  found  myself  in  one  of  her 
pretty  gilded  and  looking-glassed  cabins,  bound  on 
a  long  trip  West. 

Part  of  that  trip  has  already  been  told.  It  was 
from  the  Merrie  England  that  I  went  up  the  Purari 
delta  to  study  the  labour  question.  After  our  return 
she  went  on  down  the  coast,  across  the  Gulf  of 
Papua,  to  Daru. 

Daru,  the  port  of  entry  and  seat  of  Government 
for  the  Western  Division,  is  not  an  interesting  place 
in  itself.  At  high  tide  it  is  a  jetty,  a  handful  of  man- 
groves, a  grass  street,  and  half  a  dozen  tin  bungalows. 
At  low  tide  (and  in  defiance  of  all  the  rules  of 
physical  geography  tides  seem  to  be  oftener  out  than 
in  at  Daru)  it  is  a  black  swamp  emblazoned  with 
crabs  and  weeds,  the  town  an  indefinite  addendum 
somewhere  in  the  distance.  I  have  heard  Daru 
called  pretty,  but  it  is  a  poisonous-looking  prettiness 
at  best — flaming  toadstool-coloured  croton  bushes  in 
rows,  grass  and  bush  much  too  green,  soil  too  black, 
sun  too  brilliant  for  anything  with  a  hide  inferior  in 


2o6  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

resistant  qualities  to  that  of  a  basking  alligator. 
Daru  is  not  healthy,  and  not  unhealthy.  There  is 
some  malaria  there,  but  nothing  like  so  much  as  one 
might  expect  from  the  surroundings.  Indeed,  all 
over  the  western  and  gulf  districts  Papua  gives  the 
lie  to  quite  a  number  of  theories  of  hygiene.  Bevan, 
the  explorer  of  the  eighties,  long  ago  noticed  with 
astonishment  the  excellent  health  and  fine  physique  of 
the  delta  tribes,  who  live  literally  in  a  sea  of  rotting 
swamp,  where,  by  all  the  laws  of  ordinary  hygienic 
science,  they  ought  merely  to  die. 

It  is  the  surroundings  of  Daru  that  lend  the  little 
town  any  interest  it  possesses.  In  the  first  place,  it  is 
situated  on  an  islet  at  the  mouth  of  the  Fly,  and  the 
Fly  is  one  of  the  largest  and  most  important  rivers  in 
the  world.  Like  every  other  Papuan  river,  it  is 
known  only  for  a  certain  distance.  In  this  case  the 
sphere  of  the  explorer  extends  over  500  miles,  but 
no  one  knows  where  the  stream  rises,  and  the  upper 
reaches,  though  navigable  to  steamers  of  a  good  size, 
are  very  seldom  visited. 

There  is  no  white  settlement  along  the  Fly.  Land 
there  is  in  plenty,  lying  a  very  little  way  back  from 
the  river,  and  not  apparently  used  by  the  natives, 
except  in  certain  districts,  where  the  great  extent  and 
regularity  of  the  Papuan  banana  groves  has  excited 
the  admiration  of  all  the  travellers — they  are  not 
many- — ^who  have  visited  the  great  river.  Sugar 
country  is  found  along  the  Fly  inferior  to  none  in  the 
world.     There    is    open    grass  country   a    few  miles 


% 


rhoto  II'.  Il'/iitten. 


A  w  I  HOWS  \\Ki:i>s:    i  i,v  ki\i:r 


To  face  page  206. 


THE   GREAT   FLY  207 

beyotnl  the  banks  in  many  districts.  The  river  pro- 
vides a  matchless  water-way  for  the  conveyance  of 
produce  to  market,  and  the  lower  part  of  the  estuary 
is  within  a  day's  steam  of  Australia.  Still,  for  all 
that  no  one  expects  to  see  the  Fly  country  settled 
yet.      It  is  too  far  away. 

There  are  no  white  people  at  all  in  the  huge 
Western  Division,  save  two  Government  officials  and 
half  a  dozen  traders  and  missionaries.  The  country 
has  an  ill  reputation,  scarcely  correct  as  regards  health, 
but  as  regards  the  natives  something  truer.  You  are 
not  in  the  comfortable  plantation  country,  with  its 
mail  steamers  and  its  known  and  mapped  divisions, 
and  its  useful,  tractable  natives,  when  you  get  into 
the  Wild  West.  This  is  Papua  very  much  in  the 
rough,  as  yet. 

No  one  can  doubt,  all  the  same,  that  this  mighty 
river  will  be  a  highway  of  traffic  some  day.  We  did 
not  visit  it  in  the  Merrie  England.  We  did  not  even 
see  it,  though  we  were  lying  in  its  estuary  a  night 
and  a  day — for  the  estuary  is  over  eighty  miles  wide, 
and  you  are  quite  out  of  sight  of  the  shore,  anchored 
in  the  midst  of  this  great  river  mouth.  But  you  can 
infer  the  nearness  of  the  Fly  when  you  look  at  the 
yellow  flood  of  fresh  water  on  which  the  steamer  is 
floating,  and  you  are  not  surprised  to  hear,  amazing 
though  it  seems,  that  the  Fly  River  pours  forth  every 
twenty-four  hours  into  the  Gulf  of  Papua  enough 
water  to  give  every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  the 
world  an  allowance  of  sixty  gallons  twice  over,  sixty 


2o8  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

gallons  being  the  accepted  standard  in  places  where 
water  is  plentiful. 

From  Daru  and  the  West  we  ran  over  to  Thursday- 
Island — only  eighteen  hours,  even  at  the  seven-knot 
pace  of  the  leisurely  Merrie  England — and  found  our- 
selves once  more  in  Australian  territory. 

If  you  wish  to  find  Thursday  Island  on  the  map, 
you  must  follow  the  huge  peninsula  of  North  Queens- 
land with  your  eye  right  to  the  end,  and  mark  down 
a  tiny  speck  lying  close  to  the  edge,  among  the  big 
islands  of  Torres  Straits — Mulgrave,  Banks,  Prince 
of  Wales,  and  Horn.  Thursday  lies  close  to  Prince 
of  Wales'  Island,  and  is  almost  dwarfed  out  of  sight 
by  its  neighbour,  but  it  is  much  the  more  important 
place,  all  the  same.  All  the  big  islands  are  almost 
uninhabited  ;  little  Thursday,  however,  has  a  town 
and  a  barracks  and  a  fort  and  quite  a  number  of  call- 
ing steamers.  It  is  the  centre  of  the  great  pearling 
industry  of  North  Queensland,  and  keeps  a  good- 
sized  fleet  of  pearlers  constantly  at  work. 

The  place  looked  like  nothing  in  the  world  so 
much  as  a  small,  bright,  painted  view  inside  a  glass 
paperweight  when  we  came  up  to  it  in  the  full  morn- 
ing light.  The  clear  air  cast  a  crystalline  sparkle  over 
the  green  central  hill,  and  the  red  and  white  town 
climbing  up  its  slopes,  and  the  fiery  blue  sky  and  flat 
blue  sea.  Thin  black  masts  of  sloops  and  schooners 
stood  out  like  sharp  pen-strokes  against  the  hill  and 
the  town  in  rows  as  thick  as  rushes.  The  fleet  was 
laid   up   in   the   harbour,   for   there  was  a  strike   on 


I'hoto  W.  li'kitnii. 


1  i.v  rivi:k  folk 


To  face  page  2o3. 


THURSDAY    ISLAND  209 

among  the  lessees  of  the  boats,  and  no  one  was  going 
out  to  dive.  In  consequence  we  saw  practically 
nothing  of  the  chief  industry  of  Thursday  Island.  We 
could  not,  indeed,  have  come  at  a  worse  time. 

The  Merrie  England,  however,  had  come  over  on 
Government  business,  and  did  not  concern  herself 
about  the  doings  of  the  fleet.  While  her  officials 
were  busy  in  the  saloon  with  mails  I  went  for  a  walk 
about  the  town  and  saw  what  was  to  be  seen. 

It  was  a  most  bewildering  place.  If  I  had  not 
known  I  was  in  Australian  territory,  I  should  cer- 
tainly have  thought  that  the  Merrie  England  had 
made  a  mistake  and  landed  me  somewhere  in  Japan. 
Japanese  were  the  yellow-faced,  under-sized  men  in 
ill-fitting  slop-made  suits  who  passed  up  and  down 
the  pretty  boulevarded  streets.  Japanese  were  the 
women  in  kimono  and  obi,  with  puffed  and  oiled 
black  hair,  who  sat  on  the  verandahs  of  the  rickety 
tin-roofed  houses  or  walked  in  and  out  of  the  shops 
with  their  quaint  little  slant-eyed  children  buying 
groceries  and  prints.  Japanese  were  the  shops  them- 
selves, full  of  sandals  and  crapes  and  silks  for  the 
most  part,  with  a  few  inferior  and  costly  European 
goods  thrown  in,  the  whole  presided  over  by  a  yellow 
little  man  in  an  unbecoming  black  suit — unless  by 
chance  the  shopkeeper  was  a  tall  Chinese  in  a  blouse, 
with  a  thin  pigtail  hanging  down  his  back.  Of  the 
celebrated  courtesy  and  grace  of  Japan  the  Thursday 
Island  Jap  emigrant  knows  nothing.  He  has  taken 
up  the  footpath  in  groups  of  threes  and  fours,  and  it 
p 


2IO  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

goes  hard  but  he  will  make  you  turn  off  into  the  mud 
for  him  if  he  can.  He  is  not  too  anxious  to  serve 
you  if  you  patronise  his  shop  (with  one  exception — a 
very  smart  and  businesslike  little  yellow  heathen, 
who  appears  to  have  most  of  the  European  custom  in 
his  hands,  and  deserves  it),  but  gives  you  to  under- 
stand as  clearly  as  he  can  that  he  is  conferring  a 
favour  on  you  in  accepting  your  money.  He  is 
superior  to  the  white  in  numbers,  as  there  are 
about  two  thousand  Japanese  and  Chinese  in  the 
little  Island,  and  only  seven  hundred  Europeans  or 
Australians.  The  truth  is — and  it  is  not  a  pleasant 
truth  for  Australia — that  Thursday  Island  practically 
belongs  to  Japan.  The  pearling  trade  has  gradually 
slipped  into  Japanese  hands,  and  practically  all  the 
boats  at  the  time  of  my  visit  were  owned  directly  or 
indirectly  by  Japanese.  The  costliness  of  white  labour 
is  supposed  to  be  the  chief  reason.  Whatever  the 
cause  may  be,  the  fact  is  regrettable,  for  the  pearl  and 
the  shell  of  Thursday  Island,  even  in  these  days  of 
diminished  takings,  are  worth  very  many  thousands  a 
year.  Twenty-three  thousand  pounds  is  the  average 
value  of  the  pearls  alone,  and  they  are  much  the  least 
part  of  the  profit,  the  shell — which  sells  at  any  price 
you  like  to  mention  from  £ S^  to  £100  a  ton — being 
the  chief  stand-by  of  the  trade. 

As  it  was  impossible  to  see  the  pearling  fleet  at 
work,  I  was  constrained  to  do  the  next  best  thing — 
take  a  trip  on  a  sloop  owned  (for  once)  by  a  white 
man  and  see  how  the  diving  was  done.     Mr.   and 


TORRES   STRAIT  211 

Mrs.    F ,    residents    of   Thursday    Island,    very 

kindly  offered  to  take  me  for  the  trip,  and  further 
pressed  upon  me  the  loan  of  a  diving  dress  to  go 
down  and  see  for  myself  what  the  bottom  of  the  sea 
looked  like. 

I  wanted  very  much  to  go  down  over  the  pearling 
grounds,  but  my  hosts  assured  me  that  this  was 
impossible.  They  arc  pearling  now  at  Thursday 
Island  in  a  very  great  depth  of  water,  the  shallower 
places  having  been  fished  out,  and  even  experienced 
divers  find  the  pressure  of  a  hundred  feet  and  more 
most  trying.  It  would  scarcely  be  safe,  I  was  told  ; 
and  as  to  another  diver  going  down  to  ensure  against 
accident,  that  was  the  very  way  to  bring  them  about  : 
life-lines  and  air-tubes  got  tangled,  the  pumps  were 
easier  to  manage  for  one  than  two — in  fine,  I  had 
better  go  down  in  shallower  water,  and  I  should  find 
it  best  to  go  by  myself. 

So  it  was  agreed  ;  and  the  little  sloop  was  towed 
out  a  mile  or  two  beyond  the  town  to  a  spot  only 
a  few  fathoms  deep,  where  it  was  agreed  that  I  might 
safely  make  my  diving  debut. 

Now,  Torres  Straits,  as  everyone  in  Queensland 
knows,  is  full  of  sharks,  common  and  tiger,  and  also 
of  alligators,  devil-fish,  sting-ray,  and  various  other 
unpleasant  creatures.  I  could  not  help  thinking  about 
them  a  little  as  we  cast  anchor  over  the  selected 
place  and  began  to  prepare  the  diving  gear.  It 
is  considered  rather  bad  form  and  rather  silly  to 
make    a    fuss    about    sharks    and    alligators    in    the 


212  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

countries  where  they  abound  ;  still,  I  ventured  a 
timid  inquiry. 

*'  Oh,  that's  all  right,"  1  was  told  ;  "  the  alligators 
don't  take  this  track  crossing  the  Straits  ;  and  as  for 
the  sharks,  accidents  are  very  uncommon — very  un- 
common ;  besides,  this  is  not  a  likely  place.  If  by 
any  chance  you  should  see  a  shark,  don't  be  the  least 
alarmed  ;  just  pull  up  the  cuff  of  your  jumper  a  little 
so  as  to  let  out  a  few  bubbles  of  air,  and  he'll  be 
frightened  off.  Don't  pull  the  cord  till  he  is  well 
away  ;  you're  all  right  on  the  bottom,  but  they  have 
been  known  to  make  a  grab  at  a  man  when  he  was 
being  pulled  up — as  they  do  at  a  fish  on  your  line, 
you  know — and  bite  his  boots  off.  I  don't  suppose 
for  a  minute  you'll  see  one,  however." 

All  this  was  so  businesslike  and  so  thoughtful,  and 
the  men  were  so  kindly  and  carefully  preparing  the 
pumps  and  looking  to  the  tubes  and  putting  the 
ladder  in  the  easiest  place  for  me  to  get  over,  that  it 
was  impossible  to  be  scared,  so  of  course  I  was  not. 
I  did  not  feel  like  myself — like  someone  else,  rather, 
whom  I  had  only  recently  met  and  did  not  care  for — 
but  I  was  not  scared.  I  thought  a  good  deal  about 
a  French  model  dress  and  hat  I  had  been  tempted 
into  buying  in  Melbourne,  and  wished  I  had  been 
less  chary  of  wearing  it,  because  now  .  .  .  But  I 
was  not  scared.  I  wished  I  had  told  the  captain  of 
the  Merrie  England  about  the  piece  I  had  burned  out 
of  one  of  his  inestimable  varnished  floors,  and  asked 
him  not   to   grieve   for  it,   or  me,  or  something — it 


A    DIVER'S   SUIT  213 

seemed  a  little  involved,  but  I  was  not  scared.  .  .  . 
I  reflected.   .    .    . 

"  Now,  if  you'll  come  down  into  the  cabin,  I'll 
help  you  into  your  dress,"  said  my  hostess  cheerily. 
And  I  went,  because  I  was  not  at  all  frightened. 

Mrs.   F is  a  tall,  powerfully-built  Australian, 

with  muscles  equal  to  a  man's.  It  takes  two  people, 
as  a  rule,  to  get  another  into  a  diving  dress,  but  she 
managed  to  push  and  punch  and  kick  me  into  mine 
unaided — no  mean  feat  of  athletics,  as  anyone  who 
has  ever  seen  a  diver's  toilet  will  understand. 

First  of  all  came  a  jersey  and  tights  of  white  wool 
nearly  half  an  inch  thick.  I  got  into  these  without 
difficulty,  as  they  were  large  and  loose,  but  the  heat 
in  that  torrid  atmosphere  made  me  fairly  gasp.  I 
was  assured,  however,  that  the  warm  clothing  was 
very  necessary  down  under  water  if  one  wanted  to 
avoid  chills. 

Then  came  the  real  difficulty.  The  diving  suit 
itself— an  all-over  garment,  with  legs,  feet,  and 
sleeves  all  made  of  stiff  thick  rubber-cloth — was 
produced,  and  I  was  told  I  had  to  crawl  in  feet  fore- 
most through  the  neck  ! 

It  was  done  at  last,  an  inch  at  a  time,  with  pauses 
for  rest,  and  two  panting  creatures  climbed  out  on 
deck,  one  in  a  cool  white  dress  and  hat,  the  other  in 
a  shapeless  shambling  sort  of  costume  that  made  her 
look  like  a  toad  with  a  tendency  to  apoplexy. 

1  sat  down  on  the  hatch,  and  two  "  tenders,"  as 
they  were  called  (men  who  look  after  the  diving  gear), 


214  THE   NEW    NEW   GUINEA 

completed  my  toilet.     They  took  a  pair  of  rubber- 
cloth  boots  with  lead  soles  that  weighed  twenty  pounds 
each  and  put  them  on  my  feet.     They  got  a  wrench, 
pulled  up  the  metal  yoke  of  my  dress  tight  round  my 
neck,  and  screwed  me  into  it  by  means  of  nuts.  Then 
they  brought  a  mass  of  copper  and  iron  that  seemed 
a  fair  load  for  a  horse  and  clapped  it  over  my  head. 
This   was    the    helmet.     The    glasses    were   not    yet 
screwed  on,  so  I  could  look  out  of  the  windows  and 
wonder    what  was   going   to   happen   next,  and   how 
I  was  ever  going  to  move  a  limb  encased  in  all  that 
panoply    of  metal.      I   felt   a  sympathy   I  had   never 
known   before — for    the    knights   of   mediaeval    days 
cased  in  unyielding  steel,  for  a  lonely  lobster  prisoned 
in  its  carapace,  for  birds  shut  up  in  hard,  uncomfort- 
able eggshells,  for  everything  that  was  screwed  tight 
into  something  and  couldn't  get  out.     Meanwhile  the 
tenders  went  on  tending.     They  took  the  big  end  of 
the   wrench  and   more  nuts  and  screwed  my  helmet 
down  on   to  the   metal  yoke,  hauling  on  their  tools 
and  pressing  the  nuts  home  as  if  they  were  never  to 
be  loosened  any  more.     Then  they  let  go  and  told  me 
to  try  and  walk. 

I  got  up,  feeling  like  a  fly  that  had  fallen  into  a 
treacle-dish,  and  slowly  dragged  one  heavy  foot  after 
another,  six  steps  a  minute  across  the  deck.  This 
created  much  satisfaction.  The  diving  dress  is  con- 
structed on  the  principle  of  giving  you  just  as  much 
weight  as  you  can  support,  and  sometimes  a  weak  diver 
finds  it  too  much  and  cannot  move  in  the  costume  at  all. 


READY   TO   DIVE  215 

All  the  same,  I  had  to  crawl  very  slowly  to  the 
bulwarks,  where  the  industrious  tenders  had  hung 
the  ladder,  and  I  was  glad  to  hear  that  the  necklace 
of  lead  weights,  weighing  forty  pounds,  which  I  had 
already  been  eyeing  uncomfortably,  was  not  to  be  put 
on  till  the  last  moment. 

My  host  was  busy  with  the  air-pump,  looking  over 
the  length  of  rubber  tubing  carefully,  seeing  that  the 
machinery  was  in  good  order,  and  assuring  me — 
rather  too  emphatically,  I  thought — that  he  meant  to 
take  charge  of  the  pump  himself  and  let  the  tenders 
merely  watch  the  line.  I  did  not  know  how  grateful 
I  ought  to  have  been,  but  I  learned  all  about  that  later 
on.  Three-fourths  of  the  accidents  that  put  an  end 
to  divers  occur  through  carelessness  on  the  part  of 
the  man  at  the  pump.  When  the  diver  is  below,  a 
tender  is  deputed  to  keep  the  life-line  and  air-tube 
clear  and  make  sure  that  all  signals  are  instantly  seen. 
It  is  a  serious  business  this  diving,  and  nobody  treats 
it  like  play. 

The  use  of  the  line  and  valves  was  explained  to  me. 
The  rope  fastened  round  my  waist  was  meant  to  let 
me  down  and  haul  me  up.  The  smaller  line,  fastened 
to  my  helmet  and  dropping  in  front,  was  to  be  kept 
in  my  hand.  There  were  a  lot  of  signals  one  could 
make  with  it,  but  I  had  better  not  try  to  learn  them, 
they  would  only  confuse  me.  1  could  recollect  that 
a  good  pull  on  this  line  meant  "  I  want  to  come  up" 
— that  was  all  that  was  necessary.  As  for  the  valve, 
it    was    turned  one   way   to   increase  the   air  supply. 


21 6  THE   NEW   NEWJ  GUINEA 

another  to  lessen  it.     Now,  was  I  ready  to  get  over 
the  side  ? 

I  repeat  that  1  was  not  afraid.  Is  it  being  afraid  to 
wish  oneself  in  bed  at  home  with  the  blankets  pulled 
up  over  one's  ears  and  the  door  locked  ?  Is  it  being 
afraid  to  call  oneself  a  fool,  softly  and  silently,  and  say 
that  never,  never  again  .  .  .  ?  Is  it  being  afraid  if 
one  thinks  suddenly  and  strangely  of  dentists'  waiting- 
rooms  and  the  horrible  nod  that  beckons  you  forth 
from  your  uneasy  seat  and  the  dread  command  to 
"  open  a  little  wider  "  ?     Certainly  not. 

They  lifted  my  feet  for  me  and  put  them  down 
singly  on  the  ladder.  They  helped  me  a  step  or  two 
down  into  the  water.  They  took  that  horrible  lead 
necklace  and  laid  it  gently,  almost  caressingly,  round 
my  copper  and  iron  neck.  And  then  they  said 
*'  Good-bye,"  and  put  the  glass  window  in,  and 
screwed  down  the  coffin — I  mean  the  helmet.  Their 
faces  were  faint  through  the  glass,  but  they  smiled  and 
signalled  (for  I  could  hear  no  longer),  and  I  knew 
that  they  were  asking  "  Are  you  ready  .''  " 

It  is  at  this  point  that  the  novice  usually  clutches 
hold  of  the  rail  and  insists  on  being  taken  back.  It 
was  at  this  point  that  my  fiction  broke  up,  and  I 
realised  that  I  was  extremely  afraid.  The  sober  truth, 
I  think,  is  that  a  woman  always  is  afraid  of  doing 
dangerous  things.  Generally  she  lies  about  it,  partly 
through  conceit,  and  largely  because  she  is  curious 
and  does  not  mind  being  horribly  afraid  if  )'Ou  will 
give  her  what  she  wants.     But  the  truth  is  as  I  have 


ON   THE   BOTTOM  217 

said.  The  cold  courage  of  the  male — the  Nelson 
courage  that  "  never  saw  fear" — is  not  in  any  woman 
who  ever  was  born.  We  take  our  risks  as  the  Botany 
Bay  convict  took  his  walks — with  a  shrinking  brute 
irrevocably  chained  to  our  side,  dragging  it  wherever 
we  go. 

The  brute  disliked  that  dive.  It  hated  the  plunge 
to  the  bottom — scarcely  thirty  feet,  but  it  might  have 
been  a  thousand — that  followed  when  1  carefully  slid 
those  gigantic  boots  off  the  ladder.  It  was  disgusted 
when  I  landed — as  all  beginners  do — on  my  head,  and 
had  to  struggle  to  get  right.  It  told  me  that  my 
hands  were  bare  and  that  sharks  could  nip  them  off, 
and  that  I  had  no  knife  as  a  diver  should  have,  and 
that  there  might  be  "something"  in  every  black 
cavern  of  the  dead  coral  over  which  I  found  myself 
walking.  But  it  got  interested  in  the  surroundings 
by  and  by  and  forgot  to  nag. 

After  all,  it  was  worth  some  trouble  and  discomfort 
to  find  oneself  walking  on  the  bottom  of  Torres 
Straits,  down  where  the  divers  had  been  at  work  a 
year  or  two  ago,  seeing  just  what  they  saw  when  they 
went  out  for  their  day's  strange  labour,  all  but  the 
pearl-shell,  which  had  of  course  been  taken  away. 
The  water  chanced  not  to  be  very  clear,  and  the 
bottom  was  so  weedy  that  one  was  simply  walking  in 
a  green  garden  of  weeds  half-way  up  to  the  knee. 
But  there  was  a  little  coral  to  be  seen,  pearly  white 
among  the  weeds  (it  was  dead  coral — a  living  bed  is  a 
veritable   flower-garden    of  vivid    colours),    and   the 


2i8  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

light  that  came  down  from  above,  dim  and  green  and 
softly  diffused,  showed  the  surroundings  plainly 
enough. 

It  is  a  strange  sensation  this  "  walking  alone  in  the 
depths  of  the  sea,"  and  one  that  I  think  no  one  could 
describe  adequately.  To  get  away  from  the  laws  of 
gravity  as  you  have  known  them  all  your  life  is  in 
itself  a  somewhat  disorganising  experience.  And  the 
laws  of  gravity  do  not  act  at  the  bottom  of  the  seas  as 
they  do  on  land.  All  that  weight  of  lead  and  iron 
that  you  bore  so  painfully  up  on  deck  barely  suffices 
down  here  to  keep  you  on  the  ground.  You  walk 
with  strange,  soft,  striding  steps  ;  your  arms  and  legs 
obey  your  will,  but  slowly  and  after  consideration. 
Everything  is  muffled — your  movements,  your  breath, 
your  sight,  your  hearing.  You  do  not  feel  awake  ; 
you  are  not  sure  that  you  are  alive.  The  pump 
beats  in  your  ears  like  a  huge  pulse,  but  you  feel  it 
rather  than  hear  it.  You  are  conscious  that  your 
nose  and  ears  are  hurting  you,  and  that  your  lungs  do 
not  feel  as  they  ought,  but  it  seems  somebody  else's 
pain  rather  than  yours.  Fish  swim  past  you,  green 
and  grey  in  the  green  water.  You  realise  with  some- 
thing of  a  shock  that  they  are  not  afraid  of  you.  On 
the  deck  of  the  sloop,  the  mere  shadow  of  your  hand 
would  send  them  flying  as  they  glide  past  the  ship's 
counter,  but  here  in  the  depths  of  the  sea  they  fin 
their  slow  way  up  to  the  very  windows  of  your 
helmet,  and  look  in  at  you  with  their  cold  glassy 
eyes,   unafraid.      You   stretch   out   a   hand   to  grasp 


UP   AGAIN  219 

them,  and  they  avoid  It  quietly  and  without  haste. 
You  look  ahead  through  the  darkling  water  for  the 
swoop  and  rush  and  horrible  scythe-shaped  tail  of  the 
monster  that  you  fear,  but  there  is  no  sign  of  it.  .  .  . 
Still — you  have  been  down  some  minutes  now,  and 
honour  is  amply  satisfied.  It  would  be  very  pleasant 
to  see  the  light  of  day  again.  .  .  .  You  stoop  down, 
slowly  and  *'  disposedly,"  as  one  moves  under  water, 
and  gather  up  a  bit  of  weed  and  a  fragment  of  coral 
for  a  souvenir  ;  and  then  you  pull  the  cord. 

No  sensation  of  movement  follows,  and  for  a 
moment  your  heart  stands  still.  Has  the  tender 
forgotten  to  tend  after  all.''  .  .  .  But  in  another 
second  you  notice  that  the  air  bubbles  are  rushing  in 
a  long  stream  past  the  windows  of  your  prison,  and 
you  realise  that  you  must  be  going  although  you  do 
not  feel  it.  .  .  .  The  rungs  of  the  ladder  appear, 
glide  downwards,  vanish.  The  light  suddenly  bright- 
ens— you  are  up  1 

It  is  easy  to  catch  the  bulwark  and  stand  on  the 
top  of  the  ladder  while  the  tender  unscrews  your 
helmet-glass.  And  the  sweetness  of  that  first  rush  of 
warm  tropic  air  breaking  upon  your  cold,  perspiring 
face  and  going  in  a  grateful  rush  right  down  your 
swollen  lungs  is  a  thing  to  be  thankful  for  evermore. 
The  undressing  is  full  as  trying  a  job  as  the  dressing; 
as  you  were  squeezed  and  pounded  into  the  costume, 
so  you  have  to  be  dragged  and  pinched  out  of  it  when 
the  tenders  have  done  unscrewing  the  endless  nuts 
and  have  taken  off  the  leaden  jewellery  and  removed 


220  THE   NEW    NEW    GUINEA 

the  mighty  boots.     But  you  are  so  glad  to  be  out 
again  and  alive  again  that  you  do  not  care. 

It  was  interesting  to  hear  during  our  short  stay  at 
Thursday  Island  that  the  shell  was  by  no  means  so 
completely  fished  out  as  reports  of  the  day  had 
declared.  True,  most  of  the  good  shell  is  now  at  the 
bottom  of  those  depths  of  two  hundred  feet  and  more 
into  which  no  diver  can  venture,  but  it  is  not  all  out 
of  reach.  Enough  shallow  water  shell  remains  to 
keep  a  good-sized  fleet  at  work.  If  we  had  only 
been  there  sooner  or  later,  we  could  have  gone  out 
and  seen  the  divers  working  ;  but  this  pleasure  was 
denied  us. 

Instead,  one  had  to  content  oneself  with  the  pearl- 
ing gossip  that  floated  about  every  verandah  universal 
as  tobacco-smoke.  Home  people  are  apt  to  think 
that  the  chief  interest  of  a  pearling-station  lies  in  the 
pearls  ;  but  this  is  not  the  case  at  all.  Pearls  are 
regarded  as  an  extra  something  that  you  cannot  rely 
on  ;  you  may  get  them,  and  you  may  not ;  but  in  any 
case  the  shell  is  there,  and  your  divers  cannot  steal 
that.  Many  boats  are  let  to  Japanese,  who  are  allowed 
to  take  all  the  pearls  that  are  found  and  sell  the  shell 
to  the  owners  of  the  boat  at  ;^8o  a  ton.  The  price  of 
this  commodity  varies  a  great  deal,  as  it  is  chiefly 
used  for  articles  of  dress  and  fancy  goods,  which  are 
constantly  affected  by  fashion.  Still,  the  ;^8o  leaves  a 
large  profit. 

The  pearls  are  mostly  bought  by  dealers  in  Thurs- 


PEARL   DOCTORS  221 

day  Island.  Pearl-doctoring  is  thoroughly  understood 
and  constantly  done  by  the  buyers.  It  is  not  in  any 
way  an  illegitimate  process,  any  more  than  is  the 
cutting  and  polishing  of  a  gem.  Pearls  are  sometimes 
skinned  to  give  them  a  liner  lustre  ;  the  irregular 
formation  known  among  jewellers  as  "baroque" 
pearl  is  occasionally  trimmed  into  useful  shapes,  and 
"blister"  pearls  are  sometimes  destroyed  on  the 
chance  of  finding  something  better  inside.  Indeed, 
the  blister  pearl  is  quite  a  fascinating  form  of  specu- 
lation. It  is  generally  unattractive  to  look  at — a 
flattish,  irregular  mass  that  can  only  be  set  in  some 
fanciful  way  for  a  cheap  pendant  or  brooch — and  one 
has  little  compunction  in  sacrificing  this  form  of  gem. 
But  sometimes  it  is  good-looking  enough,  well- 
coloured,  and  worth  a  fair  sum  ;  and  then  the  ques- 
tion arises,  Is  it  worth  while  to  cut  the  pearl  up  or 
not  ?  If  the  answer  is  in  the  affirmative,  the  buyer 
carefully  chisels  off  the  outer  skin,  goes  a  little 
deeper,  and  finds — perhaps  an  empty  blister  worth 
nothing  at  all  now,  perhaps  a  beautiful,  large,  regular 
pearl,  loose  inside  or  lightly  attached  to  the  walls  of 
the  covering  formation.  Some  of  the  finest  pearls 
ever  sent  out  of  Thursday  Island  have  been  dis- 
covered in  this  way.  How  many  ladies,  one  wonders, 
are  carrying  about  gems  worth  hundreds  of  pounds, 
unknown  and  unsuspected,  inside  the  irregular  shell 
of  the  cheap  "  baroque "  pearl  that  makes  up  their 
"  new  art  "  necklace  pendant  .'' 

We  had  only  a  flying  visit  to  Thursday  Island,  for 


222  THE   NEW   NEW    GUINEA 

there  was  work  for  the  Merrie  England  to  do  all  along 
the  coast,  and  time  was  flying.  The  second  day 
found  the  Government  yacht  under  steam  again, 
gliding  northward  to  Papua  through  the  bright  green 
coral  islets  of  Torres  Straits.  We  were  bound  now 
for  no  less  a  place  than  Goari-Bari — the  scene  of 
Chalmers'  murder  in  1901,  and  of  the  much-discussed 
fight  in  the  year  1904  that  led  to  the  suicide  of  the 
Chief  Justice. 

There  had  been  no  call  at  Goari-Bari  for  two  years 
past,  and  no  one  knew  just  what  frame  of  mind  the 
natives  might  be  in.  Their  reputation  has  always 
been  one  of  the  worst,  and  they  are  as  treacherous  as 
they  are  cruel  and  cowardly.  The  Governor  expressed 
his  intention  of  making  a  peaceful  call,  but  it  must  be 
allowed  that  no  one  on  the  ship  thought  His  Excel- 
lency's desire  very  likely  of  fulfilment. 

We  steamed  up  to  the  island  in  the  forenoon  and 
cast  anchor  about  a  mile  from  the  village  ;  nearer  the 
Merrie  England's  draught  would  not  allow  her  to  go. 
The  famous,  or  infamous,  Goari-Bari  lay  right  before 
us — a  long,  low,  swampy  island  near  the  mouth  of  a 
great  river  (the  Aird),  with  a  row  of  ill-constructed 
brown  huts  showing  prominently  on  the  mud  of  the 
foreshore.  The  sky  was  yellow-grey,  low,  and  hot, 
the  sea  lumpy  and  choppy  ;  the  wind  blew  strong, 
but  it  had  no  freshness  in  it.  An  ugly  day,  an  ugly 
place. 

For  an  hour  or  two  the  Merrie  England  waited,  and 
then,  greatly  daring,  one  or  two  canoes  stole  out  from 


WICKED   GOARI-BARI  223 

the  town  and  paddled  near  us.  Our  interpreter  called 
to  them,  assuring  them  of  our  friendly  intention  and 
displaying  calico  and  tobacco.  But  for  a  considerable 
time  the  Goari-Barians  hesitated,  paddling  up  and 
down  excitedly  in  their  canoes,  chattering  like  parrots, 
shivering  with  excitement — ready  at  any  moment 
either  to  grasp  the  arrows  in  the  bottoms  of  the 
canoes  or  to  turn  tail  and  rush  for  shore.  They  were 
the  ugliest  crowd  I  had  yet  seen  in  the  country — 
naked,  save  for  a  scrap  of  bark  or  fibre  ;  lean  and 
ungraceful,  their  heads  shaved  bare  to  the  middle, 
with  a  bunch  of  greasy  curls  hanging  out  behind, 
their  faces  painted  with  red  stripes  and  patches. 
Feathers  streamed  and  grass  armlets  fluttered  about 
their  restless  persons  ;  they  were  jumpy,  excitable, 
and  (to  use  an  Americanism)  "skeery"  almost  beyond 
belief. 

This  was  my  first,  but  not  my  last,  visit  to  the  Aird 
River  cannibals,  and  I  had  plenty  of  opportunity 
later  for  confirming  the  first  impressions  made  by 
these  strange  people.  In  Papua,  more  truly  than  in 
any  other  country  in  the  world,  it  may  be  said  that 
nothing  happens  save  the  unexpected.  But  the  ex- 
perience I  had  already  had  of  the  Country  of  the 
Impossible  did  not  prepare  me  for  the  Aird  River 
people.  The  popular  and  apparently  the  reasonable 
idea  of  a  cannibal  is  that  he  is  the  fiercest  of  human 
beasts,  warlike,  fearless,  and  determined,  knowing 
nothing  of  nerves,  nothing  of  feeling — a  creature  of 
iron.   .    .    . 


2  24  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

Instead  of  which,  he  is  the  most  hysterical,  the 
most  nervous,  twittery,  jumpy,  wire-hung  creature 
that  ever  existed  outside  of  a  ladies'  boarding-school. 
If  you  hold  out  a  finger,  he  starts.  If  you  speak 
suddenly,  he  squeaks.  If  you  look  fixedly  at  him 
for  a  few  seconds,  he  vanishes  into  the  bush  so  swittly 
and  silently  that  you  are  half  convinced  he  never  was 
there  at  all.  It  is  extraordinarily  difficult  to  take  him 
for  what  he  is  really  worth,  and  to  realise  that  this 
silly,  painted,  prancing  creature  with  the  hysterical 
giggle  and  the  childish  manner  is  actually  a  dangerous 
brute  at  bottom,  and  that  he  would  desire  nothing 
better  than  to  knock  you  on  the  head  and  eat  you — 
only  for  that  Nordenfeldt  gun  on  the  bridge  and  the 
rack  of  rifles  in  the  pretty  little  gilded  and  brocaded 
saloon. 

All  that  day  we  lay  at  anchor  and  endeavoured  to 
win  the  confidence  of  the  timid  and  retiring  cannibal. 
The  canoes  came  thick  and  fast  round  the  ship  by  and 
by,  and  their  occupants  were  delighted  to  receive  the 
gifts  handed  down  over  the  side — red  calico,  tobacco, 
common  knives — all  inestimable  treasures  to  a  village 
that  knows  no  traffic  with  the  white  districts  of  Papua, 
and  does  not  possess  so  much  as  an  inch  of  hoop- 
iron  for  making  adzes.  With  dusk  our  visitors 
cleared  away,  but  at  night  we  could  hear  loud  singing 
on  shore  and  see  the  light  of  fires  in  the  village. 
They  were  evidently  excited  in  the  highest  degree, 
and  did  not  know  what  to  make  of  our  call. 

Next    morning,    while    sleeping    peacefully  in   my 


•'  REAL   JAM  225 

berth,  I  was  awakened  by  a  clinking  noise,  and  looked 
up  to  see  a  long,  brown,  filthy  arm  and  hand  extended 
through  the  port,  making  a  snatch  at  my  water-bottle. 
I  called  out  angrily,  and  the  arm  vanished  with  the 
water-bottle  !  Looking  out  through  the  nearer  port 
I  could  see  a  flotilla  of  canoes  round  my  cabin,  and 
at  least  half  a  hundred  unclean  heathen  hustling  one 
another  for  a  look  in  I  I  got  up  to  slam  the  ports 
and  screw  them,  but  while  I  was  fastening  one  the 
lean  arm  shot  in  again  through  the  other,  grabbed  at 
the  satin  curtain,  and  all  but  secured  it.  1  think  the 
owner  did  pull  a  brass  curtain  hook  off  the  rod  before 
I  snapped  the  port.  It  is  a  consolation  to  know  that 
he  just  missed  leaving  a  finger-tip  as  pledge. 

Later,  at  breakfast,  it  became  manifest  that  Goari- 
Bari  had  made  up  its  mind  to  accept  our  visit  as 
harmless.  I  should  not  like  to  say  how  many  hun- 
dreds of  savages  were  dodging  each  other  in  canoes 
under  the  ports  of  the  saloon  fighting  for  places  to 
look  in.  Every  porthole  was  a  mosaic  of  ugly- 
painted  faces  and  bobbing  feathers.  One  middle-aged 
person  of  a  cheerful  and  foolish  countenance,  whom 
we  christened  Willie  (he  learned  his  name  almost  at 
once,  and  answered  to  it  like  a  dog),  made  himself 
especially  prominent,  and  stared  at  the  food  with  so 
much  interest  that  I  was  moved  to  get  up  and  offer 
him  a  tablespoonful  of  apricot  jam.  He  seized  the 
spoon  promptly,  and  tried  his  best,  amid  shrieks 
of  laughter  from  the  saloon,  to  pull  it  out  of  my 
hand.  Failing  in  this,  he  scooped  the  jam  out, 
Q 


226  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

looked  at  it,  smelt  it,  rubbed   it  into  his   hair,  and 
vanished. 

By  and  by  we  went  on  deck  and  found  the  ship  in 
possession  of  the  heathen,  who  were  scampering  and 
squeaking  all  over  the  place,  watched  rather  sullenly 
by  our  dozen  of  armed  native  constabulary,  who 
thought  it  a  hard  thing  indeed  that  they  were  not 
allowed  to  pick  off  even  one  of  these  outer  bar- 
barians. The  white  sailors  kept  a  good  look  out  on 
the  visitors,  for  it  was  clear  that  these  latter  meant  to 
make  hay  while  the  sun  shone,  and  were  bent  on 
carrying  off  anything  that  was  not  nailed  down.  They 
tried  for  the  brass  stanchions  of  the  gangway,  they 
dragged  at  the  canvas  of  the  deck  chairs,  they  pulled 
the  belaying  pins  out  of  the  rack,  and  were  very  loth 
indeed  to  put  them  back.  Willie  (among  the 
foremost,  as  usual)  attracted  my  attention  by  the 
extreme  dirtiness  of  his  person,  and  I  brought  out 
a  tin  basin  of  water  and  a  piece  of  soap  and  began 
giving  a  demonstration  in  the  art  of  washing  one's 
hands. 

Willie  watched  it  rather  nervously  at  first  ;  it  was 
clear  that  he  suspected  sorcery  in  the  mysterious  pro- 
ceeding. I  offered  him  the  soap  by  and  by,  and 
made  signs  that  he  should  rub  it  on  his  hands.  I 
shall  always  honour  Willie  as  the  bravest  of  cannibals. 
Convinced  as  he  evidently  was  that  the  thing  was 
dangerous,  the  spirit  of  scientific  investigation  was 
stronger  in  his  breast  than  mere  personal  fear.  He 
washed  his  hands. 


WILLIE'S    FIRST   WASH  227 

Then,  like  the  countenance  of 

"  The  watcher  of  the  skies, 
When  some  new  planet  swims  inlo  his  ken," 

Willie's  face  expanded  with  the  joy  and  awe  of  dis- 
covery. He  looked  at  the  soap.  He  looked  at  his 
hands  almost  with  reverence,  scarcely  knowing  them 
for  his  own.  In  an  instant — nervousness  and  indeci- 
sion swept  away  like  snow  before  the  sun — he  had 
grabbed  the  basin,  let  it  go  after  a  brief  tug-of-war, 
grabbed  the  soap,  secured  that,  and   .    .    . 

Where  was  Willie  ?  There  was  a  canoe,  paddling 
madly  across  the  bay,  faster  and  faster,  further  and 
further,  almost  out  of  sight.  There  was  a  man  in  it. 
It  was  Willie,  and  he  had  the  soap. 

I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  the  town  sat  up 
all  night  after  we  had  gone  trying  the  new  sensation 
with  shrieks  of  joy.  The  missionary  vocation  is  one 
that  has  never  descended  upon  my  unworthy  person, 
but  if  I  was  not  a  missionary  for  that  one  afternoon, 
and  a  good  one  too,  then  let  me  never  see  soap  again 
till  I  die. 

The  boats  were  ordered  out  not  long  after  this,  and 
we  started  for  the  town.  In  the  first  boat  went  His 
Excellency  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  several  armed 
native  constabulary,  and  an  Australian  colonel  who 
was  visiting  the  country.  I  was  allowed  to  accom- 
pany the  party  in  the  second  boat,  which  consisted  of 
two  or  three  more  police,  a  couple  of  visiting  mis- 
sionaries, and  an  official. 


228  THE    NEW   NEW    GUINEA 

It  was  almost  the  first  time  anyone  had  made  a 
peaceful  visit  to  the  town,  with  the  exception  of  the 
disastrous  call  that  ended  in  the  death  of  Chalmers 
and  Tompkins.  The  Goari-Barians  are  frankly  at 
war  with  society.  The  position  of  their  town  in  an 
inner  curve  of  the  stormy  Gulf  of  Papua,  on  an 
island  surrounded  by  shoals  and  shallows,  has  always 
protected  them  from  sudden  attack.  Ships  keep  away 
religiously  from  the  Gulf,  which  has  a  sinister  reputa- 
tion for  wrecks  and  strandings ;  and  the  great  clumsy 
"lakatois  "  of  the  Papuan  native  cannot  approach  the 
west  at  all  during  a  good  part  of  the  year.  Of  willing 
visitors,  therefore,  Goari-Bari  has  had  scarcely  any, 
while  of  the  unwilling  visitors  who  must  have  been 
swept  up  to  the  town  now  and  then  by  the  strong 
currents  of  the  Gulf,  as  Chalmers'  luckless  schooner 
was  swept,  none  ever  returned  to  tell  the  tale.  Bits 
of  brass  fittings  from  ships  which  we  saw  while  in  the 
town  suggested  ugly  stories  that  had  never  come  to 
lio-ht.  Heretofore  the  people  of  this  infamous  little 
place,  when  visited,  had  been  either  executioners  or 
victims  of  their  visitors.     The  peaceful  call  was  new. 

Evidently  they  did  not  know  what  to  make  of  it. 
When  our  party  landed  on,  or  rather  in,  the  black 
mud  of  the  beach  and  walked  up  among  the  houses, 
with  the  native  police  straggling  about  in  the  rear  and 
fervently  praying  for  just  that  chance  of  a  row  that 
our  leader  had  determined  to  avoid,  the  fighting  men 
of  the  town  seemed  to  go  nearly  out  of  their  minds 
with  excitement  and   indecision.     They  giggled  and 


WIIKKI'.    (  IIALMKRS    WAS    KILI.KD 


THE    nONES   Ol'   THE    MLRDEREL)    MISSIONARIES 

To  face  page  22S. 


THE   VANISHING   TRICK  229 

grinned  more  than  ever  ;  they  hovered  and  danced 
about  on  tiptoe,  nearly  off  the  ground  ;  they  ran 
after  us,  touched  us,  and  withdrew  as  if  we  were  red- 
hot.  The  wild  nervousness  of  their  demeanour  was 
very  much  emphasised  by  the  style  of  their  dress, 
which  consisted  solely  of  ornaments,  nearly  all  of  a 
fluttering  and  trembling  kind — waving  plumes  of  long 
grass  thrust  into  armlets,  feathers  ingeniously  moun- 
ted on  a  stem  that  quivered  with  every  movement, 
sweeping  tails  of  grasses  and  fibres  tied  on  at  the  back 
of  the  waist  and  swinging  wildly  as  the  wearer  turned 
about,  haloes  of  long  shaking  white  and  yellow  parrot 
quills  fastened  round  the  head  with  tight  bands. 
They  really  made  one  giddy  to  look  at  ;  and  it  was 
better,  in  any  case,  not  to  look  at  them  too  much,  for 
(as  I  have  said  above)  the  Goari-Barian  has  an  ex- 
traordinary knack  of  vanishing  in  some  incredible 
way  under  a  house  or  into  a  thicket,  if  you  look  at 
him  fixedly,  which  is,  at  the  least,  embarrassing.  They 
carried  bows  and  arrows  and  long  spears  of  some 
wood  like  ebony,  barbed  and  pointed  at  the  end. 
Some  of  them  wore  close-fitting  gaiters  of  bark  cloth, 
extending  from  the  ankle  to  the  knee  and  neatly  fast- 
ened with  rows  of  small  white  cowry  shells.  They  had 
no  beads,  save  the  native  kind  made  from  small  shells, 
which  are  common  among  the  uncivilised  tribes. 
Cassowary  feathers,  which  are  like  black  horsehair  in 
texture,  seemed  to  be  favourite  adornments,  worn 
either  as  sweeping  plumes  or  as  head  ornaments 
shaped  exactly  like  a  miniature  chimney-brush.    Most 


230  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

of  the  men,  in  addition  to  painting  their  faces  and  the 
shaven  part  of  their  heads  bright  red,  had  circled 
their  eyes  with  a  large  black  ring,  which  added 
considerably  to  the  wild  savagery  of  their  appearance. 
The  nose-bone  was  not  worn. 

The  big  dubu  or  communal  house  was  of  course 
the  first  place  to  visit  in  this  odd  sight-seeing  tour. 
It  stood  close  to  the  landing-place,  on  a  bed  of  black, 
swamp  alive  with  small  crawly  crabs,  and  was  ap- 
proached by  a  very  rough  skeleton  ladder  some  eight 
or  nine  feet  high.  The  place  had  a  special  interest, 
for  it  stood  on  the  spot  occupied  by  the  dubu  in 
which  Chalmers  was  murdered  by  these  people  in 
1902.  The  Government  had  the  dubu  destroyed,  but 
another  was  put  up  shortly  after. 

This  was  the  first  of  the  very  long  dubus  that  I 
had  seen,  and  I  looked  at  it  with  interest,  knowing 
that  I  was  seeing  something  which  had  never  been 
described  in  print — which,  indeed,  was  known  to  but 
a  mere  handful  of  the  white  race  as  yet.  These  long 
dubus  are  found  only  among  the  still  unbroken  and 
uncivilised  cannibal  tribes,  and  in  most  of  the  villages 
that  possess  them  an  unprotected  stranger  would  be 
promptly  massacred.  We  owed  our  safety  to  the  fact 
that  a  dozen  police  armed  with  rifles  accompanied  us, 
and  to  the  memory  that  the  people  still  retained  of 
the  "massacre"  of  1904.  They  might,  of  course, 
have  rushed  the  party  and  overpowered  it  by  superi- 
ority of  numbers,  there  being  some  hundreds  of  men 
in  the  town  ;  but  our  leader  counted  on  the  cowardice 


IN   A   DUBU  231 

of  the  Goari-Barian — and  rightly  so,  as  events 
proved. 

The  dubu,  as  paced  by  some  of  the  ship's  party, 
was  just  upon  600  feet  long.  Its  height  was  uniform 
all  through,  and  seemed  about  twelve  feet.  Like  an 
immense  brown  centipede  it  wound  its  way  backwards 
through  the  swamp,  supported  on  innumerable  feet 
of  upbearing  piles,  and  covering  an  extent  of  ground 
that  seemed  practically  endless.  It  took  us  quite  a 
long  time  to  walk  down  the  dim  brown  tunnel  of  the 
interior,  looking  at  everything  as  we  went — the  walls, 
of  close-fitted  stick-work  ;  the  roof,  nipa-palm  thatch  ; 
the  curious  little  sections  into  which  the  whole  place 
was  divided,  like  the  pens  in  a  cattle-show,  each  pen 
being  the  abode  of  a  more  or  less  happy  family,  as 
proved  by  the  domestic  goods  lying  about — woven 
baskets,  clay  pots,  belts,  pieces  of  bark  cloth.  In  the 
very  centre  of  the  building  there  was  a  sort  of  little 
bay  looking  out  over  the  swamp  and  the  creek.  Here 
certain  treasures,  probably  communal,  were  placed — 
two  or  three  small  wooden  images  of  human  beings, 
very  rudely  carved  (we  tried  to  buy  them,  but  they 
seemed  to  be  without  price),  several  skulls,  some 
carved  into  patterns  of  a  rather  Celtic  character, 
some  fitted  with  artificial  snouts  of  bone  fastened  on 
with  clay,  which  made  them  look  extremely  like  the 
heads  of  beasts  until  closely  examined. 

And  here  "  a  strange  thing  happened."  Ever  since 
we  had  landed  in  the  town,  strange,  inhuman  howls 
and  wails  had  been  resounding  from   the  river  that 


232  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

ran  back  from  the  shore.  We  had  not  paid  much 
attention  to  them,  supposing  them  to  be  the  excited 
cries  of  dogs.  But  here,  from  the  point  of  vantage 
furnished  by  the  bay,  we  could  see  a  good  way  up  the 
river,  and  it  became  clear  that  the  howling  was  only 
in  part  attributable  to  the  brute  creation.  The  women 
of  the  town  were  fleeing  up  the  river  in  canoes, 
uttering  the  most  dismal  of  wails,  in  which  they  were 
joined  by  the  dogs  they  were  taking  with  them. 
Women,  dogs,  and  skulls — in  fact,  all  the  treasures  of 
the  town — formed  the  cargo  of  every  canoe. 

We  called  to  them,  and  even  sent  an  interpreter  to 
hail  them  from  the  bank,  but  they  only  paddled  the 
faster,  and  were  soon  altogether  lost  to  view. 

This  was  hardly  sociable  of  the  Goari-Barians  on 
an  alleged  friendly  visit,  the  removal  of  the  women 
being  always  a  sign  of  distrust  and  hostility.  How- 
ever, our  party  abandoned  the  point  for  the  moment, 
to  return  to  it  later,  and  continued  the  walk  down 
the  dubu.  We  emerged  at  the  farther  end  into  sun- 
shine that  seemed  almost  blinding  and  heat  that 
struck  upwards  from  the  black  mud  of  the  swamp 
like  the  blast  of  a  furnace.  A  few  natives  were  hover- 
ing and  twittering  about  beyond  the  dubu,  running 
lightly  up  and  down  the  slimy  logs  that  served  as 
pathways  through  the  mud.  We  gave  them  some 
beads  and  some  calico,  both  of  which  excited  an 
almost  religious  emotion  of  delight.  I  do  not  think  I 
shall  ever  forget  the  spectacle  of  a  dozen  sturdy 
cannibals  sprawling  on  their  hands  and  knees  in  the 


RIBBONS   OVERCOME    FEAR  233 

mud  and  reeds,  trying  to  pick  up  about  an  ounce  of 
small  embroidery  beads  that  someone  had  let  fall  into 
that  hopeless  tangle.  There  is  little  doubt  that,  if 
they  took  a  week  to  it,  they  would  manage  to 
succeed. 

While  some  of  us  were  thus  engaged,  a  canoe 
reappeared  tentatively  in  the  far  distance,  hovering 
about  the  corner  of  the  river.  Feminine  curiosity,  it 
seemed,  was,  after  all,  stronger  than  fear — an  incident 
scarcely  new  in  the  history  of  the  world.  We  seized 
the  opportunity  and,  advancing  to  the  bank,  hailed 
the  canoe.  It  vanished  instantly,  much  to  everyone's 
disappointment. 

Then  an  inspiration  seized  me,  and  getting  away 
from  my  party  a  hundred  yards  or  so,  I  stood  up  on  a 
log,  called  out  loudly,  and  began  waving  some  coloured 
ribbons.  The  canoes  must  have  been  within  watching 
distance  after  all,  for  one  crept  cautiously  out.  Call- 
ing, signalling,  and  displaying  the  ribbons,  I  managed 
to  lure  the  shy  game  to  hand,  and  by  and  by  we  had  two 
or  three  exceedingly  ugly  old  women,  wrinkled,  bald- 
headed,  and  almost  naked,  standing  trembling  on  the 
bank,  eyeing  the  ribbons  with  covetous  gaze.  W^e 
gave  the  poor  old  souls  a  liberal  portion  of  the 
treasure,  and  started  back  through  the  dubu  to  rejoin 
His  Excellency,  who  was  making  a  speech  to  the 
natives  on  the  other  side. 

Of  all  the  odd  incidents  of  this  odd,  mad  day,  that 
which  followed  was  the  oddest  and  the  nastiest.  We 
— myself,  the  Government  official,  and  a  missionary — 


234  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

stopped  for  a  moment  under  the  shade  of  the  dubu 
verandah  before  going  in  ;  and  at  this  moment  two 
or  three  men  came  out  of  the  dubu  carrying  a  lump 
of  meat  in  their  hands.  It  was  ugly-looking  meat, 
— watery,  pale  lead-coloured,  fat  ;  it  smelt  abomin- 
ably, and  did  not  look  like  the  known  joint  of  any 
known  animal.  The  men  held  it  up  before  us  as  they 
passed,  and  one  of  them  pulled  off  a  morsel  and  thrust 
it  under  my  nose.  The  stench  made  me  nearly  sick. 
1  got  out  of  range  as  quickly  as  possible,  and  took 
another  look  at  the  strange  object  from  a  safer  dis- 
tance.  .   .   .  Was  it .''  .  .  . 

With  a  loud,  savage  laugh  the  men  leaped  down 
from  the  platform  and  rushed  away  into  the  bush, 
carrying  their  unsavoury  morsel  with  them.  I  had 
my  suspicions  as  to  what  it  was,  and  my  companions 
were  quite  certain.  We  had  seen  a  bit  of  boiled 
man  ! 

It  was,  of  course,  the  flesh  of  a  native  victim.  The 
people  of  Goari-Bari  are  very  determined  cannibals  ; 
short  of  other  food,  they  even  eat  the  dead,  provided 
the  corpse  is  fairly  young  and  well  nourished.  They 
are  an  ill-made,  ugly-looking  set  of  ruffians,  and  not 
at  all  healthy-looking,  which  is  certainly  what  one 
would  expect. 

We  found  the  Governor  having  a  heart-to-heart 
talk  with  some  of  the  worst-looking  of  the  crew  on 
the  other  side  of  the  dubu.  He  spoke  through  an 
interpreter,  and  they  listened  with  much  seriousness, 
having  apparently  laid  aside  their  nervousness  for  the 


ONE    IS   ENOUGH  235 

moment.  They  were  not  to  go  on  eating  each  other, 
the  Governor  told  them.  It  was  disapproved  by  the 
Government  ;  besides,  they  had  to  consider  that  if 
they  went  on  eating  their  young  people,  by  and  by 
the  village  would  die  out.  They  were  not  to  bury 
their  corpses  under  houses  or  hang  them  up  in  trees 
(a  picturesque  local  custom  of  which  we  had  already 
had  an  illustration).  They  were,  especially,  not  to 
kill  any  white  men,  but  to  receive  them  civilly  if  they 
came.  The  Government  wished  to  be  friends  with 
them,  and  would  protect  them  from  their  enemies  if 
they  behaved  themselves. 

The  speech  was  received  very  gravely,  and  the  dis- 
tribution of  calico  and  tobacco  among  the  chief  men  of 
the  town  that  followed  seemed  to  cause  much  gratifi- 
cation. And  now  the  proceedings  were  enlivened 
with  a  touch  of  humour. 

"  Here  is  some  calico  for  yourself,"  said  the  dis- 
tributor of  the  goods  to  an  old  man  who  appeared  to 
be  a  person  of  some  importance.  "  Here  is  another 
piece  for  your  wife.  Have  you  more  than  one  .'' " 
holding  a  third  piece  in  readiness. 

"  No  !  "  cried  the  old  man  unexpectedly. 
*'  Why  not  ?  "  asked  the  dispenser  of  favours,  rather 
surprised  at  such  an  admission  from  a  chief. 

"  Because,"  yelled  the  old  man,  dancing  with 
excitement  and  feeling,  "  one  is  enough — quite,  quite 
enough  1  " 

There  were  three  married  men  in  our  party.  When 
the  old  chief's  remark  was  translated  to  them  they  all 


236  THE   NEW    NEW   GUINEA 

roared.  The  unmarried  men,  on  the  other  hand, 
scarcely  seemed  to  think  the  joke  remarkable  for  wit. 

It  was  now  after  four  o'clock,  and  we  felt  ready  for 
afternoon  tea.  The  native  boat's  crew,  who  were 
accustomed  to  this  picknicking  business,  lit  a  fire,  got 
out  the  hamper,  and  in  a  very  short  time  had  an 
impromptu  table  ready,  covered  with  a  damask  cloth 
and  shining  with  silver  and  china.  We  sat  down  on 
logs  all  round  and  began  to  enjoy  our  tea. 

Words  cannot  depict  the  amazement,  fear,  and  horror 
caused  by  the  proceeding.  It  was  of  course  taken  at 
once  for  sorcery,  and  sorcery  of  the  very  worst  kind. 
Astounding  objects,  such  as  no  one  had  ever  seen> 
put  to  incomprehensible  uses  by  these  scarcely  com- 
prehensible people — why,  a  man's  life  was  not  safe 
for  a  moment  in  the  neighbourhood  of  such  unholy 
mysteries  !  Nearly  every  soul  cleared  off  into  the 
bush  like  rabbits,  leaving  us  in  possession  of  an 
empty  town — all  but. 

There  were  three  or  four,  however,  who  still  hung 
about,  trembling  with  fear,  but  devoured  with 
curiosity. 

Watching  cautiously  from  under  the  houses,  they 
crept  out  by  and  by  and  ventured  close  up  to  the  tea- 
table,  their  faces  a  very  mask  or  representation  of  the 
emotion  of  astonishment.  We  offered  them  biscuits 
and  cake,  but  not  a  soul  would  touch  anything  until 
he  had  seen  the  giver  bite  off  and  swallow  a  piece, 
when  he  usually  took  the  remainder  and  ate  it  eagerly, 
yet  cautiously.  Any  gentleman,  they  evidently  thought, 


CHALMER'S   BONES    RESCUED        237 

might  be  moved  at  any  time  to  poison  another  gentle- 
man :  it  was  the  part  of  the  other  gentleman  to  see 
that  he  did  not  do  it. 

By  now  wc  thought  it  time  to  go  back,  so  the 
boats  were  ordered,  and  the  visitors  took  their 
departure.  Goari-Bari  had,  for  once,  known  a 
peaceful  visit. 

Next  day  the  Governor  went  on  shore,  and  after 
the  exercise  of  a  little  diplomacy  succeeded  in  getting 
possession  of  the  bones  of  the  murdered  Chalmers 
and  his  fellow-worker  Tompkins.  They  were  easily 
identified  by  means  of  certain  known  peculiarities. 
The  Merrie  England  conveyed  them  to  the  London 
Mission  Station  at  Daru,  where  the  representative  of 
the  Mission  saw  to  their  decent  burial.  And  so  the 
prestige  of  Goari-Bari  was  broken. 

A  year  later  the  Merrie  England  made  another  call, 
when  I  had  again  the  luck  to  be  present.  We  found 
the  town  much  as  it  had  been  on  the  occasion  of  the 
last  visit — it  could  not  be  called  more  friendly.  Still, 
judging  by  the  experience  that  the  Government  has 
had  with  other  intractable  tribes,  civility  and  trust 
will  come  in  time.  On  this  occasion  the  people  of 
Goari-Bari  visited  the  ship  while  the  Government 
party  was  absent,  and,  in  spite  of  the  care  of  the 
sailors,  stole  one  or  two  items  that  betrayed  a  strange 
taste  in  booty. 

Item  :  His  Excellency's  toothbrush. 

Item  :   Newspapers — all  they  could  get. 

Item  :  One  pair  of  gloves,  picked  up  in  the  water. 


238  THE   NEW   NEW    GUINEA 

Item  :  One  umbrella — theft  vigorously  attempted, 
but  did  not  quite  come  off. 

This  was  no  mere  chance  selection.  You  can  buy- 
nearly  any  thing  in  Goari-Bari  for  newspaper — politics 
indifferent — and  as  for  an  umbrella,  the  Goari-Barian 
would  sell  his  soul,  if  he  knew  he  had  one,  for  even 
half  of  such  a  treasure.  An  aeroplane  ascent  in  the 
midst  of  a  Cockney  crowd  never  created  half  so 
much  excitement  as  did  the  unfurling  of  my  umbrella 
in  Goari-Bari  on  the  day  of  our  second  visit.  The 
people  danced  and  shouted  with  excitement,  and 
fought  each  other  for  a  chance  to  touch  the  spring 
and  repeat  the  miracle.  Had  I  not  been  very  strongly 
escorted  they  would  certainly  have  had  that  umbrella ; 
they  could  scarcely  restrain  themselves  from  snatching 
it  as  it  was. 

As  for  the  toothbrush,  I  do  not  suppose  for  a 
minute  that  they  meant  to  put  it  to  its  legitimate  use, 
or  had  the  slightest  idea  of  what  that  was.  They 
probably  wanted  it  for  a  "  pourri-pourri,"  or  charm 
much  as  one  of  the  Western  tribes  wanted  a  shoe- 
horn, which  they  stole  from  a  trader  and  hung  up  in 
their  biggest  temple  for  the  adoration  of  the  faithful. 
All  in  all,  the  tastes  of  Goari-Bari,  coupled  with  its 
exceedingly  primitive  state,  forcibly  recall  the  saying 
of  the  famous  philosopher  who  expressed  his  readi- 
ness to  do  without  the  necessities  of  life  if  he  might 
only  have  the  superfluities ! 

It  was  on  the  occasion  of  our  second  visit  to  the 
Wild  West — in  January,  1909 — that  we  came  upon 


NOT    FOR   TOURISTS  239 

something  that  really  was  rather  near  being  an  adven- 
ture. The  story  is  worth  telling,  not  for  any  small 
part  that  I  took  in  it  myself,  but  simply  as  an 
illustration  of  something  not  known  to  most  British 
colonies — the  art  of  making  peace  peacefully. 

This  great  unbroken  and  unexplored  district  of  the 
West,  with  its  smaller  neighbour  the  Gulf  Division, 
is  perhaps  the  chief  of  the  many  sources  of  anxiety 
that  render  unquiet  the  pillow  of  Papuan  rulers.  All 
in  all,  this  part  of  the  country  is  as  large  as  England, 
and  nobody  knows  much  about  it.  The  peaceful 
planter  of  the  Central  and  Eastern  Divisions  scarcely 
knows  that  it  exists,  and  takes  little  interest  in  it,  save 
in  so  far  as  it  supplies  him  at  times  with  wild,  savage, 
but  very  useful  labour.  The  tourist  who  comes  up 
in  the  alle2;ed  cool  season  from  Sydney  or  Melbourne 
for  a  trip  round  the  Solomon  Islands  and  Papua  in 
a  Burns  Philp  steamer  never  goes  within  a  hundred 
miles  of  it — first,  because  steamers  do  not  call  ; 
secondly,  because  everything  that  sails  the  seas  goes 
in  terror  of  the  Gulf  and  its  storms  and  currents  and 
deadly  river  bars  ;  thirdly,  because  it  is  not  a  place  for 
the  irresponsible  tourist  to  "  monkey  with  "  anyhow, 
and  he  is  usually  advised  to  keep  away.  The  Merrie 
England — a  small,  strongly  built  steamer  made  of 
wood,  with  a  huge  leaden  keel,  can  take  chances  with 
reefs  and  bars  that  other  vessels  dare  not  encounter, 
and  what  she  cannot  do  her  steam-launch  can.  It  is  the 
duty  of  her  officials  to  visit  the  district,  and  they  do 
so  ;  it  is   the  duty  of  the  Resident  Magistrates  to 


240  THE   NEW    NEW    GUINEA 

patrol,  and  they  try,  under  difficulties  the  like  of 
which  Stanley  never  even  imagined  ;  it  is  not  the 
duty  of  anyone  else  to  go  there,  and  no  one  else  goes 
except  an  occasional  explorer. 

The  Government,  therefore,  is  left  to  wrestle  alone 
with  the  tremendous  task  of  subduing,  reforming, 
and  bringing  into  line  as  a  useful  and  civilised  colony 
this  immense  preserve  of  murderous  cannibals — an 
unknown  land  protected  by  dangerous  coasts,  by 
trackless  marshes,  by  natural  mazes  of  rivers  hun- 
dreds of  miles  in  extent,  by  vast  unbroken  forests, 
and,  more  than  all,  by  a  conformation  of  country 
almost  inconceivably  rugged  and  entangled. 

The  tools  with  which  the  Government  has  to  work 
are  almost  laughably  inadequate  —  two  Resident 
Magistrates,  thirty-four  armed  native  constables,  a 
couple  of  whaleboats,  and  two  small  ketches.  The 
Government  yacht  makes  not  more  than  a  couple  of 
visits  in  the  year,  unless  any  serious  disturbance  calls 
for  a  special  expedition. 

One  would  like  to  see  what  kind  of  reception  such 
a  programme  would  meet  with  if  put  before  one  of 
our  Indian,  West  African,  or  Burmese  officials. 
"Utter  impossibility"  would  be  the  mildest  term 
likely  to  be  used  in  describing  it.  And  yet  the 
impossible  thing  is  being  done  in  Papua,  that  land 
where,  truly,  "  nothing  arrives  save  the  unexpected." 
The  West  is  being  broken  in  slowly,  carefully,  without 
violence,  step  by  step,  yet  unmistakably.  Two  years 
ago   the   tribes   of   the   delta    country  and   the    Aird 


FRUITS   AND   SAGO  241 

River  openly  defied  and  even  attacked  white  men 
whenever  they  saw  them.  Now,  like  the  sailor  in 
the  wise  saw,  if  they  have  no  decency  they  sham  a 
little,  and,  at  all  events,  receive  the  ruling  race  with 
civility — paying  it  the  further  compliment  of  conceal- 
ing cannibal  murders  and  outrages  as  far  as  possible 
from  the  prejudiced  mind  of  the  white,  Goari-Bari 
may  seem  to  be  an  exception,  but  the  fact  that  a  small 
party  of  whites,  with  a  very  small  guard,  now  visit 
that  notorious  town  in  safety  every  year,  proves  an 
enormous  advance  over  the  state  of  a  very  few  years 
ago.  Further,  the  Western  and  Gulf  tribes  have 
recently  begun  to  ask  help  from  the  Government 
when  oppressed  and  attacked  by  their  enemies,  and 
one  or  two  of  them  have,  entirely  of  their  own 
accord,  sent  in  tribute  of  fruits  and  sago. 

The  old-fashioned  system,  now  done  away  with, 
was  the  same  that  is  being  carried  out  in  nearly  all 
savage  or  semi-savage  colonies  to-day.  It  is  very 
simple.  You  let  your  dangerous  savage  alone  till  he 
kills  a  missionary  or  a  trader,  and  then  you  go  and 
burn  down  his  village  and  shoot  as  many  of  him  as  you 
can  catch,  which  is  not  many  as  a  rule.  After  this 
you  return  to  your  seat  of  government  and  let  him 
alone.  When  the  process  has  been  repeated  a  good 
many  times,  you  take  a  large  armed  force  and  march 
through  his  country  fighting  as  you  go  in  the  hope 
of  teaching  him  a  lesson  that  he  will  not  forget.  He 
does  not  forget  ;  on  the  contrary,  he  keeps  a  stone 
up  his  sleeve  for  you,  and  waits  years,  if  need  be,  for 


242  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

an  opportunity  to  throw  it — not  necessarily  at  you  ; 
if  you  are  unattainable,  the  newest  missionary  or  the 
latest  settler  or  trader  will  do  just  as  well.  Then  you 
go  out  and  exterminate  him  some  more,  and  if  land 
has  been  taken  up  in  his  neighbourhood  you  "  dis- 
perse "  him  (with  a  rifle)  as  often  as  he  comes  near 
the  settlements.  By  this  time  he  is  getting  dis- 
couraged, and  (after  the  fashion  of  the  discouraged 
native)  he  begins  to  die  out,  aided  considerably  by 
the  gin  to  which  the  traders  have  introduced  him. 
(You  told  them  not  to,  but  they  would  do  it, 
and  how  were  you  to  catch  them  ?  .  .  .  besides, 
it  really  does  add  on  to  the  revenue  very  con- 
veniently, and  gives  you  something  to  build  your 
bridges  with.)    .    .    . 

The  process  takes  anything  you  like  from  fifty  to  a 
hundred  years,  but  it  comes  to  an  end  at  last.  The 
country  is  civilised.  The  native  is  dispersed — to  the 
Elysian  fields  or  elsewhere  (not  your  fault,  again  ; 
you  told  him  to  go  "  to  hell  or  to  Connaught,"  and  if 
he  chose  the  former,  are  you  to  blame  }).  You  have 
imported  nice,  clean,  sensible  Indian  and  Chinese 
coolies  to  fill  his  place;  his  hunting-grounds  are 
covered  with  sugar  plantations,  and  his  mountain 
fastnesses  are  haunts  of  the  winter  tourist.  In  fine, 
you  have  civilised  the  country.  And  as  for  the 
"  native  "...  did  we  say  you  were  his  keeper  .? 
Did  anyone  tell  the  first  agent  of  civilisation  on 
record — he  who  built  the  first  cities,  and  was  the 
ancestor  of  "  those  that  work  in  brass  and  iron  " — 


A  rATi;NT  or  Nor.ii.nv 


To  face  paje  242. 


A   BROTHER'S    KEEPER  243 

that  he  was  the  keeper  of  the  inconvenient  personage 
he  "  dispersed  "  ?  .    .    . 

That  is  the  old  way  of  our  colonies.  The  new  way- 
is  something  so  simple,  yet  so  astonishing,  that  1 
count  myself  fortunate  to  have  had  the  luck  of  seeing 
it  in  person.  It  is  easy  to  understand  an  account  of  a 
punitive  expedition  or  a  fight.  It  is  not  so  easy  to 
see  the  inner  meaning  of  a  report  that  deals  only  with 
a  peaceful  call  on  a  hostile  tribe.  1  am  glad  that  I 
was  there  to  see  and  to  realise  how  peace  is  being 
made  in  the  West. 

It  was  a  wet,  warm,  blowy  morning,  and  the  Gulf 
looked  very  nasty  indeed.  The  great  inlet  upon 
which  the  Merrie  England,  had  been  pitching  and  roll- 
ing all  night  was  livid  yellow  in  colour  under  a  sky 
of  dirty  grey.  The  little  party  of  seven  white  people 
and  eleven  armed  native  police  who  were  going  ashore 
had  to  watch  their  time  getting  into  the  launch  and 
the  boat,  and  jump  when  the  pitching  seas  allowed. 
Rain  beat  hard  in  our  faces  as  the  launch  towed  us  at 
top  speed  to  Goari-Bari,  where  we  meant  to  get  a 
guide  if  possible.  We  were  going  to  a  town  called 
Maipare,  some  few  miles  away,  but  no  one  knew 
exactly  where  it  was,  as  it  had  never  been  visited  by 
whites  except  in  1902,  after  Chalmers'  death,  when  a 
general  punitive  expedition  had  landed  a  large  body 
of  soldiers  from  Australia,  accompanied  by  native 
police,  and  shot  everyone  who  appeared. 


244  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

We  did  not  expect  a  peaceful  reception,  and  it  was 
all  the  more  important,  therefore,  to  get  a  guide  who 
could  act  as  interpreter  and  call  out  encouraging 
remarks  as  we  approached.  (Of  course  the  village 
had  a  language  of  its  own.  You  might  as  well  be 
without  a  detached  villa  in  London  Suburbia  as  with- 
out a  detached  language  in  the  back  country  of 
Papua  :  the  absence  of  either  would  argue  an  un- 
aristocratic  familiarity  with  miscellaneous  neighbours.) 

They  were  not  up  when  we  got  to  Dopima  Beach, 
below  the  town  commonly  called  Goari-Bari.  It  was 
getting  on  for  eight  o'clock,  but  the  morning  was 
unpleasant  and  gloomy,  and  the  simple  savage  (who 
is  always  up  with  the  golden  dawn,  carolling  like  a 
lark  as  he  seeks  his  breakfast  of  "  herbs "  and  fruits, 
according  to  the  simple-life  theorists)  had  not  turned 
out  yet,  and  did  not  want  to.  W^e  shouted  for  him 
till  he  did  get  up,  however,  and  came  down  to  the 
beach,  two  or  three  of  him,  looking  sulky  and  sleepy. 

With  infinite  persuasions  and  the  promise  of  a 
good  steel  axe  (produced)  we  succeeded  in  getting 
one  man  to  qo  with  us,  after  we  had  calmed  his  naive 
fear  that  the  Big  Chief  wanted  to  keep  him  altogether 
and  his  various  coquetries  about  doing  what  was 
wanted  of  him.  (Jlfaut  se /aire  mousser,  he  seemed  to 
be  saying  to  himself  in  Goari-Barian.)  It  was  well 
on  in  the  morning  when  we  got  away,  still  under  a 
fall  of  gusty  rain,  and  made  our  way  through  the 
lumpy,  pounding  seas  in  the  direction  of  Maipare. 
Our  guide  was  quite  happy  for  a  while,  and  did  not 


NOT   AT   HOME  245 

seem  much  astonished  by  the  mechanism  of  the  steam- 
launch,  although  the  ingenuities  of  my  umbrella  on  the 
day  before  had  nearly  frightened  him  into  a  fit.  Things 
entirely  outside  the  grasp  of  the  native  mind  do  not 
astound  it,  as  a  rule  ;  it  is  small  matters,  such  as 
gloves,  tea-kettles,  eye-glasses,  that  strike  visible 
amazement  into  the  soul  of  the  simple  cannibal.  The 
speed  of  the  launch  seemed  to  delight  him,  and  when 
he  was  told  to  get  up  into  the  bows  of  the  boat  and 
con  us  through  the  shoals,  he  obeyed  with  evident 
pleasure. 

But  now,  after  an  hour  or  two,  we  were  getting  to 
Maipare.  The  line  of  black  swampy  coast  was  closing 
in  ;  thatched  houses  could  be  seen  in  the  distance, 
and  small  coloured  specks  were  moving  excitedly 
about.  Our  guide  began  to  look  as  if  he  were  asking 
himself  the  old  riddle  about  what  is  better  in  a  rail- 
way accident  than  presence  of  mind.  He  made  a  wild, 
weird  picture  enough,  perched  up  against  the  sky-line 
in  the  bows  like  some  demon  figure-head,  his  body 
flung  forward  almost  beyond  the  limits  of  statical 
laws,  his  black  bark-cloth  mantle  flying  in  the  wind, 
every  feather  in  his  halo  streaming  and  quivering, 
his  fierce,  painted  face  strained  towards  the  rapidly 
approaching  shore.  It  was  plain  to  everyone  in  the 
two  boats  that  Maipare  did  not  want  us,  and  was  pre- 
pared to  say  "  Not  at  home "  in  terms  the  most 
emphatic.  The  shore  was  lined  with  fighting  men, 
several  hundred  of  them,  painted,  feathered,  and 
armed  to  the  last  degree.     They  were  uttering  a  most 


246  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

extraordinary  cry,  like  nothing  on  earth  but  a  dog- 
show  in  torment,  loud  yelps  being  mixed  with  piercing 
howls  in  a  peculiarly  canine  way.  As  we  came  nearer 
they  began  to  dance,  and  it  was  then  that  I  first  had 
the  pleasure  of  seeing  what  very  few  people  have  ever 
looked  on — a  real  war-dance,  danced  in  earnest  by 
genuine  savages. 

If  anyone  wants  to  see  an  exact  reproduction  of  the 
performance,  let  him  take  a  children's  jumping-jack 
and  pull  the  strings.  That  is  the  Aird  River  war- 
dance  to  a  hair.  Just  so  did  the  people  throw  up  an 
arm  and  a  leg,  rapidly  and  alternately,  with  a  curious, 
wooden,  unlifelike  effect,  that  yet  managed  to  convey 
its  meaning  with  remarkable  clearness.  "  Come  on!" 
it  said.  "Come  on,  and  take  what  you  will  get!" 
The  tall  bows  and  the  bunches  of  arrows,  the  long 
thin  spears  shaken  defiantly  in  the  air,  the  fluttering 
feathers  and  fringes  of  the  dancing  warriors,  added  to 
the  general  effect,  and  made  one  at  least  of  the  party 
curse  the  luck  that  had  covered  the  sky  with  drifting 
rain-clouds  and  rendered  the  camera  useless.  I  had 
secured  a  snap  of  a  Goari-Barian  rudely  doing  a  war- 
dance  by  himself  the  day  before  ;  but  the  splendid 
picture  of  four  or  five  hundred  men  in  full  war-dress 
dancing  with  all  their  souls  was  not  to  be  mine  or 
anyone  else's. 

The  steam-launch  puffed  on,  and  we  rushed  nearer 
and  nearer  to  the  shore.  Our  interpreter  and  guide 
swung  wildly  by  a  stay  in  the  bows,  yelling  himself 
hoarse,  calling  to  the  people  to  put  down  their  arms, 


LANDING   AT   MAIPARE  247 

assuring  them  no  harm  was  meant,  urging  them  to 
stop  dancing,  to  listen  ;  but  they  took  no  more  notice 
of  him  than  if  he  had  been  a  screaming  cockatoo.  We 
were  almost  within  bowshot  now  ;  and  some  df  us 
were  beginning  to  wonder  what  was  coming  next — 
only  to  wonder,  however.  We  had  seen  something 
of  the  Governmental  methods  before,  and  knew  that 
they  had  a  knack  of  turning  out  right  side  up. 

When  close  to  the  shore  the  Governor  stopped  the 
launch  and  started  for  the  shore  with  nine  of  the 
police  and  four  of  the  white  men,  leaving  myself, 
two  police,  and  two  engineers  in  the  steam-launch, 
all  very  bitterly  disappointed  at  being  out  of  the 
fun,  though  I  was  told  I  should  be  sent  for  as 
soon  as  possible.  We  were  immediately  surrounded 
by  a  swarm  of  canoes  filled  with  lively  gentry  from 
the  town,  who  hovered  about  us,  darting  to  and  fro, 
and  trying  to  grab  everything  portable  that  the 
launch  contained.  It  took  up  all  our  attention  for 
a  few  minutes  to  protect  the  Merrie  England's  property 
without  creating  a  disturbance,  and  so  I  missed  the 
sight  of  the  landing,  which  must  have  been  worth 
seeing.  The  howls  of  the  interpreter  had  succeeded 
so  far  as  to  induce  the  natives  to  lay  down  some  of 
their  weapons  and  to  stop  dancing.  On  this  the 
party  landed,  and  the  five  white  men  and  nine  police 
then  went  for  a  walk  among  the  four  or  five  hundred 
excited  cannibals,  talking  to  them,  looking  at  them, 
and  offering  them  smokes.  This  unprecedented  con- 
duct first  puzzled,  then  interested,  then  reassured  the 


248  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

warriors.  They  could  not  understand  very  well  what 
these  lunatics  were  doing,  but  they  thought  the 
strangers  must  be  in  possession  of  some  extraordinary 
unseen  force  to  behave  in  such  a  manner,  and  they 
inferred  that  their  intentions  were  nevertheless  not 
evil.  They  did  not  abandon  their  arms,  and  they 
kept  up  an  extremely  wild  and  excited  demeanour, 
but  they  made  no  attack,  and  when  asked  to  bring  out 
their  women,  so  that  the  white  woman  might  come 
ashore,  they  actually  produced  two  or  three  wrinkled 
old  hags  and  brought  them  down  to  the  beach. 

The  boat  was  now  sent  for  me,  and  brought  me 
into  the  town.  I  had  scarcely  set  foot  on  the  mud 
of  the  beach  when  the  two  old  women  seized  me  by 
both  hands  and  grasped  me  as  if  they  were  drowning. 
They  were  evidently  very  badly  frightened,  and 
clung  to  the  idea  of  a  hostage  as  their  only  safety. 
Surrounded  by  a  wildly  excited  crowd — the  hysteria 
of  Goari-Bari  was  really  nothing  to  the  hysteria  of 
Maipare — they,  and  an  old  man  who  seemed  to  be 
a  chief,  led  me  to  the  dubu  of  the  town,  and  half 
dragged,  half  pushed  me  up  the  ladder.  Some  of  our 
own  party  followed,  but  the  old  hags  were  evidently 
not  interested  in  them.  They  towed  me  down  the 
whole  length  of  the  dubu  (nearly  as  long  as  that  of 
Goari-Bari),  still  led  by  the  old  chief,  and  still  cackling 
and  chuckling  with  joy.  At  the  end  of  the  building 
they  paused,  and  seemed  undecided  what  to  do.  The 
far  door  led  out  into  the  depths  of  unknown,  slimy, 
swampy  thickets,  and  1  had  no  fancy  at  all  to  go  there,  as 


SIT   DOWN  249 

their  looks  suggested  they  wanted  me  to  do.  Possibly 
the  rest  of  the  women  were  concealed  somewhere  in 
the  swamp  and  wished  to  sec  mc,  but  I  thought  the 
chance  too  uncertain  to  take,  as  treachery  is  the  very 
soul  of  the  western  savage.  We  all  lingered  for 
a  moment,  apparently  admiring  the  very  unadmir- 
able  view,  and  then,  on  the  motion  of  the  whites, 
started  back  down  the  endless  length  of  the  dim, 
dusty,  shaky  brown  tunnel  along  which  we  had 
come. 

The  women  still  kept  up  their  drowning  grip,  and 
the  old  man  still  towed  the  entire  outfit.  When  we 
reached  the  centre  of  the  dubu  they  came  to  a  deter- 
mined halt  and  began  pulling  downwards  towards  the 
floor,  motioning  to  myself  and  the  two  white  men 
who  were  with  me  that  we  should  sit. 

Nobody  knew  exactly  what  to  do.  There  were 
a  good  many  natives  in  the  dubu,  and  although  the 
people  were  civil  enough,  one  could  not  quite  forget 
that  the  preliminary  to  the  end  of  Chalmers  and 
others  had  been  just  such  an  invitation  to  "  sit  down." 
There  was  silence  for  a  moment  or  two.  The  sun 
sifted  in  through  the  roof  in  long  thin  spears,  making 
a  warp  of  dusty  gold  across  the  transparent  gloom. 
The  curtains  of  brown  combed  fibre  that  hung  from 
the  rafters  dropped  straight  and  still  in  the  windless 
air,  like  worn-out  banners  from  some  forgotten  battle- 
field, hung  in  a  dark  cathedral.  Dusky  faces  and 
forms,  scarce  visible  in  the  shadow,  and  motionless 
save  for  the  trembling  of  a  grass  armlet  or  the  flicker 


250  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

of  a  plume,  waited  for  our  reply.     And  the  women 
pulled  my  hands. 

It  was  only  a  few  seconds  before  the  white  men 
answered.  We  would  not  stay,  they  said.  It  was 
getting  late,  and  we  had  to  remember  the  fall  of  the 
tide. 

So  we  went  out  again  into  the  rainy  sunlight  of 
the  beach,  where  the  mud-crabs  crawled  by  millions 
in  the  slime,  and  the  poisonous  green  bush  clustered 
low  on    the  black    quagmire  of  the  land.      Maipare 
was  still  at  fever-point  of  excitement,  running  about, 
staring,   skipping,   bolting  into  the  bush  and  coming 
back  again,  and  (like  Goari-Bari)  instantly  converting 
itself  into  a  dissolving  view  if  you  looked  at  any  of  it 
too  closely.     But  it  had  altered  its  demeanour  to  a 
certain  extent.     The  presents  given  by   the  Govern- 
ment   party — wonderful    red    calico,    beads,    knives, 
tobacco — had  convinced  it  that  these  strange  people, 
headed  by  the  very  tall  chief,  did  not  intend  to  use 
the  mysterious  powers  of  offence  that  they  no  doubt 
possessed.     It  had  brought  out  more  of  its  women — 
young  ones  this  time — and  a  few  children,  to  share  in 
the  good  things  that  were  going  ;  and  it  was  laughing 
I10W — laughing  with  a  wild   nervous  excitement,  but 
evidently  not  without  some  sort  of  pleasure.     W^hen 
we  re-embarked,  at  least  a  score  of  long  light  canoes 
pushed    off  from  shore  to  accompany    us    as    far   as 
possible.     The  men  paddled  with  astonishing  vigour, 
and  kept  up  with  the  launch  as  long  as  the  smooth 
water  lasted,  but  when   we  got  out  into  the  lumpy 


COME   AGAIN  251 

water  of  the  bay  the  cockle-shell  crafts  fell  behind, 
and  the  last  we  saw  of  Maiparc  was  a  vision  of  wild 
painted  faces,  with  feathers  streaming  in  the  wind, 
and  long  mantles  of  new  scarlet  calico  slatting  and 
flying  like  loose  sails,  all  falling  into  the  rear,  with 
shrieks  and  cries  that  needed  no  interpreter  to  translate 
them  into  their  obvious  equivalent — "Come  again  !  " 

One  knew,  without  being  told,  that  the  next  party 
of  official  visitors  who  came  to  Maipare  would  find 
the  town  friendly  and  well-disposed.  Another  step 
had  been  taken  towards  the  pacification  of  the  West. 

There  is  not  space  to  tell  of  two  or  three  other 
calls  that  the  Government  party  made  while  I  was 
with  them  in  the  same  district;  calls  that  took  us  into 
villages  never  before  seen  by  whites,  where  sometimes 
nearly  the  whole  population  cleared  oflF  into  the  bush, 
only  a  few  brave  or  curious  souls  remaining  to  see  what 
manner  of  people  these  white  conquerors  might  be,  of 
whom  they  had  heard  so  much.  The  plucky  minority 
were  always  well  rewarded,  for  gifts  of  red  calico, 
beads,  tobacco,  and  knives  were  always  made,  and  all 
these  are  valued  in  the  Gulf  and  river  country  much 
as  Russian  sable  robes,  diamonds,  and  fine  solid  silver 
tableware  would  be  valued  in  an  English  provincial 
town  if  suddenly  distributed  broadcast  by  an  eccen- 
tric travelling  millionaire. 

None  of  the  odd  experiences  for  which  people 
spend  their  time  and  money  in  travelling  is  more 
piquant  than  this  playing  of  Lords  and  Ladies  Bounti- 
ful among  untamed  savages.    It  is  as  gratifying  to  one's 


252  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

natural  human  vanity  as  the  part  of  a  great  Royalty 
might  be  to  one  unaccustomed  to  such  honours.  When 
your  boots  are  obviously  regarded  as  a  miracle,  your 
hat  as  a  piece  of  magic — when  a  stray  button  from 
your  clothes  is  cherished  like  the  relic  of  a  saint,  and 
the  back  of  an  old  letter  out  of  your  pocket  is 
accepted  with  trembling  joy — when  your  lordly 
munificence  in  giving  away  halfpenny  sticks  of 
tobacco,  and  your  splendid  generosity  in  bestowing 
inestimable  fourpenny  knives  seem  to  drive  the  lucky 
beneficiaries  half  out  of  their  minds,  it  is  hard  not  to 
feel  that  you  are  great  and  good  to  a  degree  that  even 
you  yourself  had  not  previously  suspected.  Of 
course,  real  gratitude  is  an  emotion  not  known  to 
these  simple  souls,  any  more  than  it  is  known,  as  a 
rule,  to  your  greengrocer,  or  your  county  member,  or 
your  patient,  or  your  client,  or  your  tiresome  greedy 
nephew  or  aunt.  They  (the  savages)  think  you  silly 
for  giving  them  all  these  treasures,  but  they  worship 
the  power  that  has  made  you  master  of  such  things, 
and  they  understand  dimly,  imperfectly,  yet  unmis- 
takably, as  men  black,  brown,  and  white,  cannibal  or 
Christian,  do  understand  the  things  that  really  matter 
— that  you  mean  to  be  their  friend. 

With  this  knowledge  goes  also  the  conviction — 
much  older,  and  based  on  manifold  rumours  that 
have  drifted  in  from  the  wider  civilisation  beyond — 
that  the  Government  does  not  like  cannibalism  and 
tribal  murder,  and  that  these  pleasing  diversions  are 
best  kept  away  from  its  knowledge  "  lest  some  worse 


ORDER   OF   THE    SHIRT  253 

thing  happen."  Later  on  will  come  the  step  which 
Maipua  has  taken  during  the  year  and  a  half  that 
have  elapsed  since  1  first  made  its  acquaintance — 
actually  abandoning  these  practices,  and  fast  be- 
coming the  copy-book  example  of  the  river  country. 
The  cannibal  of  the  West  is  by  no  means  deficient 
in  brains,  and  when  he  realises  once  for  all  that  it 
pays  to  be  "in"  with  the  Government,  he  becomes 
almost  obtrusively  loyal. 

In  a  new  village  the  Government  always  cements 
the  allegiance  of  the  chiefs  by  a  curious  ceremony, 
which  might  be  called  the  Investiture  of  the  Order  of 
the  Imperial  Shirt.  Clothes-wearing,  it  may  be  added 
in  parenthesis,  is  not  encouraged  among  the  natives, 
as  science  has  proved  that  it  helps  to  produce  disease, 
but  an  exception  is  made  in  the  case  of  chiefs  with 
whom  the  ruling  Powers  wish  to  open  up  friendly 
relations.  Anything  like  a  ceremonial  dress  or 
uniform  has  an  incalculable  effect  upon  the  Papuan 
mind.  The  force  of  village  constables  that  helps  the 
Armed  Native  Constabulary  in  keeping  order  would, 
like  the  constabulary,  be  more  comfortable,  and  per- 
haps more  healthy  (though  no  ill  results  have  been 
noted)  without  the  serge  tunics  and  jumpers,  braided 
with  red,  that  they  wear  as  a  sign  of  office  ;  but  it  is 
certain  that  they  would  be  much  less  happy,  and  that 
they  would  exact  scarcely  any  respect  from  the  other 
natives  without  uniform.  In  the  unsettled  and  scarce- 
visited  districts  of  the  West,  where  a  rude  kind  of 
bark  cloth  is  the  only  material  available  tor  covering, 


254  THE   NEW   NEW    GUINEA 

the  smallest  fragment  of  cotton  is  highly  valued,  and 
the  possession  of  a  whole  shirt  is  enough  to  make  a 
man  a  king  among  his  fellows.  Therefore,  at  each  new 
town,  where  the  foot  of  the  white  man  had  never 
before  attempted  to  tread  (we  say  attempted,  as  the 
treading  was  mostly  done  on  half-submerged  logs 
with  occasional  disasters),  the  principal  old  man  was 
picked  out  and  solemnly  invested  by  the  Governor's 
Private  Secretary  with  a  shirt,  a  cotton  tunic,  and  a 
leather  belt. 

One  and  all  they  took  the  ceremony  in  exactly  the 
same  way.  It  was  possible  to  be  excited  and  hilarious 
over  a  knife  or  a  handful  of  beads,  but  for  great 
matters  great  emotions  were  appropriate.  They 
understood  fully  that  the  presentation  of  these  royal 
robes  conferred  a  rank  upon  them  higher  than  they 
had  ever  possessed,  and  made  them  in  some  way 
allies  of  the  mysterious  power  known  as  "  Gova- 
mena."  With  a  dignity  surprising  to  see  in  a  naked 
heathen  who  had  only  the  moment  before  been  pranc- 
ing and  skipping  with  excitement,  and  scrambling  in 
the  mud  for  beads,  the  chief,  under  operation,  would 
stand  up  to  be  dressed,  head  in  air,  chest  thrown  out, 
eyes  half  closed  with  pride,  and  utter  never  a  word 
while  he  was  being  put  into  the  strange  garments  that 
were  to  change  the  whole  current  of  his  life.  Once 
shirted,  tunicked,  and  belted,  he  would  march  down 
the  dubu  with  long  slow  strides,  collecting  and  enjoy- 
ing the  popular  homage  as  he  went,  but  never  casting 
a  glance  at  the  common  folk  who  offered  it.     Hence- 


AT  UKIARAVI  255 

forth  he  was  somebody,  and  very  likely,  indeed, 
to  be  on  the  side  of  the  mysterious  power  that 
had  promoted  him,  if  it  happened  to  come  down 
looking  for  a  murderer  some  months  later,  or  to 
want  men  for  carriers,  or  to  require  any  other  little 
service. 

Kaimari,  a  neighbour  of  the  copy-book  Maipua, 
has  progressed  so  far  as  to  become  actually  embar- 
rassing by  excess  of  zeal.  It  even  sent  out  seven 
hundred  warriors  in  war  canoes  to  meet  and  join 
the  Government  party,  on  one  occasion  in  1908, 
when  the  Government  wished  to  investigate  an 
attempted  attack  on  two  venturesome  white  traders, 
which  had  occurred  at  another  delta  town — Ukiaravi. 
The  very  last  thing  the  party  desired,  naturally,  was 
an  army  of  bloodthirsty,  howling  fiends  to  accom- 
pany them  on  a  mission  that  was  delicate  and  diplo- 
matic in  the  extreme,  but  they  had  almost  insur- 
mountable difficulty  in  inducing  the  loyal  militia  of 
Kaimari  to  go  home.  Ukiaravi — a  town  of  some 
thousands  of  people,  determinedly  hostile  to  whites — 
was  on  that  occasion  taken  possession  of  by  the  usual 
four  or  five  white  men  and  handful  of  police,  and  a 
number  of  prisoners  carried  away  handcuffed,  and  in 
mortal  terror,  to  several  years  of  jail  in  Port  Moresby. 
It  was  done  by  a  determined  show  of  force,  a  little 
quick  action,  and  no  violence  at  all  ;  the  people  of 
Ukiaravi,  as  the  result  of  this  salutary  action,  have 
been  sending  tributary  canoes  of  sago  and  fruit,  when- 
ever they  could,  ever  since,  to  express  the  extreme 


256  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

and   enthusiastic  character   of  the  loyalty  they  have 
so  suddenly  acquired. 

After  I  had  left  the  West  and  gone  back  to  Port 
Moresby  in  the  Merrie  England^  the  Government  party 
— His  Excellency  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  five  other 
white  men,  and  eleven  police — left  the  yacht  altogether 
for  more  than  a  week,  going  inland  in  boats  to  dis- 
tricts of  the  Aird  River  country  never  seen  by  whites, 
and  discovering  a  number  of  new,  largely  populated 
towns.  This  voyage  of  adventure  added  a  good 
deal  to  the  imperfect  geographical  knowledge  of  the 
district,  and  did  much  to  bring  the  country  in  touch 
with  civilised  influences.  No  attacks  were  made  and 
no  trouble  met  with.  The  peaceful  display  of 
authority  thus  shown,  and  the  knowledge  that  the 
tiny  handful  of  whites  had  no  fear  whatever  of  the 
hordes  of  murderous  cannibals  among  whom  they 
were  journeying,  far  from  all  possible  help,  no  doubt 
laid  the  foundations  of  a  future  reign  of  law  and 
order  among  the  hitherto  intractable  savages. 

This  is  the  new  way.  Those  who  know  the 
country  are  beginning  to  hope  that  it  may  have  a 
new  result — the  preservation  of  the  native  races,  an 
end  hitherto  not  achieved  in  any  similar  possession  of 
Great  Britain. 


CHAPTER  Vll 

Eastward  in  the  Menu'  Englauii — The  prcttiness  of  Samarai — "  Very 
feverish  " — Hunting  the  Japs — The  island  world  again — What  they 
did  in  Milne  Bay — A  day  in  the  gold  mines — The  man  who  lost 
his  head— The  unbelievable  island — Did  they  eat  the  Chinamen  ? 
— A  two  days'  man-hunt — Where  the  money  is  made. 

TT  Is  half-past  five  o'clock. 

The  stars  seem  to  be  cooling  down  before 
they  go  out.  All  night  they  have  danced  and  swayed 
in  the  space  between  the  bulwark  and  the  awning, 
hot,  yellow,  and  restless.  They  are  turning  pale  now, 
and  their  white  faces  look  chill.  The  warm  river  of 
wind  that  has  been  flowing  steadily  down  from  the 
bowsprit  across  my  mattress  since  eleven  o'clock  now 
takes  on  a  touch  of  grateful  coolness.  The  east  is 
growing  orange — the  lurid,  volcanic  orange  of  a  tropic 
dawn. 

I  sit  up  on  my  mattress,  dressing-gown  clad,  and 
look  round.  On  the  bridge-deck  above,  the  sheeted 
dead  seem  to  be  lying  in  heaps,  limbs  cast  abroad, 
heads  thrown  back  to  the  lightening  sky.  It  is  only 
the  Government  officials  and  the  ship's  officers 
wrapped  in  the  quilts  that  they  have  pulled  up  as  the 
chill  of  the  dawn  began,  but  it  certainly  suggests  a 
battlefield  in  the  dead  stillness  of  this  early  hour  while 
the  Merrie  England  is  yet  asleep.  She  will  not  long  be 
s  257 


258  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

asleep,  however.  It  is  close  on  deck-washing  time,  so 
I  gather  up  my  pillows  and  go  down  reluctantly  to 
my  pretty,  roomy,  dainty,  but  most  outrageously  hot 
and  stifling  cabin  on  the  deck  below.  The  tempera- 
ture is  over  100,  for  the  ports  have  to  be  kept  shut 
owing  to  the  liveliness  of  the  yacht  out  at  sea  ;  and 
we  are  in  the  worst  of  the  hot  season,  thrashing 
round  the  south-east  corner  of  New  Guinea  on  a  tour 
about  the  islands. 

We  left  Samarai  yesterday — the  second  town  in 
Papua  ;  the  "  other "  town,  in  fact,  since  there  are 
but  two.  Samarai  is  surely  one  of  the  very  prettiest 
places  in  the  whole  tropic  world.  Its  situation  is 
unique — a  tiny  island,  which  you  can  walk  round  in  a 
quarter  of  an  hour,  set  in  the  midst  of  a  bright  blue 
strait  surrounded  by  high,  steep,  densely  wooded 
hills.  There  are  other  islands  dotted  about  the  strait, 
some  large,  some  small,  some  near,  some  far  away, 
but  all  alike  bright  green,  palmy,  fringed  with  snow- 
white  coral  beaches — in  fact,  the  typical  South  Sea 
island  of  a  schoolboy's  dream.  People  live  on  one 
or  two — a  man  and  his  wife,  looking  after  their  cocoa- 
nut  plantation  ;  a  solitary  German,  who  keeps  cattle 
and  sends  milk  over  to  Samarai  every  day  in  a  boat  ; 
a  Chinaman,  who  grows  cabbages  and  beans  to  supply 
the  hotels.  Native  canoes,  made  out  of  hoUowed-out 
logs  and  gaily  decorated  with  big  white  shells,  ply 
constantly  up  and  down  among  the  straits  and  islets. 
The  tribes  who  live  on  the  mainland  are  all  friendly 
and  on  good  terms  with  the  whites.     Looking  down 


PRETTY    SAMARAI  259 

through  the  narrow  neck  of  China  Straits  (if  you  ask 
me  why  "  China "  I  cannot  tell  you  ;  no  one  seems 
to  know)  on  a  clear  day,  one  can  see  the  dark  blue 
mass  of  Ferguson  Island,  which  is  much  bigger  than 
the  Isle  of  Wight,  standing  up  on  the  horizon  some 
forty  miles  away.  They  are  naughty  little  people  on 
Ferguson — ill-tempered  small  cannibals  who  hide  in 
mountain  fastnesses  and  throw  spears  at  the  Govern- 
ment officials  when  the  latter  go  out  on  patrol.  But  they 
keep  to  themselves,  and  are  never  seen  near  Samarai. 

As  for  Samarai  itself,  it  is  a  much  more  imposing 
town  than  the  capital.  It  has  several  large  wooden 
hotels,  three  miscellaneous  stores,  and  a  whole  street 
of  little  tin-roofed  offices  and  bungalows.  It  is  neat 
and  tidy  to  the  verge  of  primness — white  sanded  walks, 
bordered  by  gorgeous  hedges  of  crimson  and  orange- 
leaved  crotons  ;  shaven  green  lawns  ;  garden  seats  set 
out  at  picturesque  points  all  round  the  island.  Roses 
red,  white,  and  yellow  ;  scarlet  and  cream-coloured 
hibiscus,  jasmine  in  hedges,  climbing  allamanda  (a 
flower  like  a  large  yellow  gloxinia),  strange  blossoms 
that  fall  like  showers  of  tiny  blood-drops  through 
feathery  green  foliage,  pink  begonias,  and  all  sorts  of 
quaint-foliaged  trees,  from  the  huge  forest  king  that 
bears  thousands  of  sweet  nuts,  and  is  generally  half 
scarlet,  half  green  in  leaf,  down  to  the  weird,  stiff, 
witch-like  pandanus  with  the  twisted  chevaux-de-frise 
of  saw-edged  swords — all  these  brighten  up  the  park- 
like, dainty  little  place  and  add  still  further  to  its 
cultivated  look. 


26o  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

There  is,  in  truth,  not  much  cultivation  about  it 
after  all — a  few  prisoners  from  the  jail  kept  cleaning 
and  weeding  ;  no  more.  In  countries  like  Papua, 
nature  simply  leaps  to  meet  the  gardener's  hand. 
The  mainland  is  just  as  fertile  as  Samarai.  When 
you  take  up  land  you  can  clear  away  your  "  bush  "  or 
forest,  leaving  the  ornamental  trees  and  plants,  of 
which  there  are  many  ;  pull  branches  off  anything 
that  you  fancy  in  a  neighbour's  place,  and  stick  them 
in  anywhere  you  like  ;  give  one  or  two  flowering 
creepers  carte  blanche  to  behave  as  they  please  ;  bring 
a  little  white  sand  from  the  beach  or  a  few  stones  and 
ferns  from  the  river — and  in  a  few  weeks'  time  behold 
a  result  that  would  make  Kew  Gardens  sick  with 
envy  !  Orchids  you  can  find  anywhere,  and  they 
will  grow  on  any  tree  to  which  you  tie  them.  Butter- 
flies as  big  as  birds  and  as  bright  as  jewels,  white  and 
coloured  parrots,  fireflies,  many-coloured  dragon-flies, 
will  come  without  being  asked.  Palm  trees — the 
scaly-trunked  sago  palm  ;  the  stately  cocoanut,  queen 
of  the  tropic  world  ;  the  brilliant  green  "  fan  "  palm  ; 
the  incredible  betel  palm,  with  its  white  trunk  no 
larger  than  your  neck,  and  seventy  or  eighty  feet 
high — you  will  find  established  on  your  ground  when 
you  arrive.  .  .  .  How  much  do  you  think  it  used  to 
cost  to  raise  those  half-dozen  gloomy  little  palms  in 
the  steaming  hot-house  at  the  castle  ^  How  many 
gardeners  did  that  stretch  of  "  carpet  bedding "  at 
the  deanery  employ  }  .  .  .  You  are  a  little  trader 
and  you  do  a  little  planting,  and  your  boots  wear  out 


VERY    FEVERISH  261 

before  you  can  afford  to  increase  your  bill  at  the 
store  by  fifteen  shillings  for  a  new  pair,  and  you  have 
to  make  your  dining-room  tabic  yourself  out  of  old 
packing-cases  ;  but  nobody  under  ten  thousand  a  year 
could  match  those  grounds  of  yours  at  home. 


1  have  wandered  some  way  from  the  Merrie  England 
and  her  tour.  Breakfast  is  over  now  ;  the  ship  has 
been  behaving  very  badly,  progressing  for  the  most 
part  "  the  way  the  divil  wint  through  Athlone — in 
shtandin'  leps,"  with  an  occasional  right  and  left  roll 
that  shakes  the  passengers  exactly  as  a  gigantic  terrier 
might  shake  a  rat.  In  consequence  people  are  feeling 
"very  feverish  to-day,"  and  appetites  are  uncertain. 
.  .  .  Fever  in  Papua  covers  more  sins,  secrets,  and 
weaknesses  than  ever  did  the  proverbial  cloak  of 
charity.  Is  there  a  vicious  roll  on  the  steamer,  and 
does  your  face  grow  green  as  the  swinging  seas .'' 
You  are  feverish  ;  you  must  go  and  lie  down.  Have 
you  been  dining  unwisely  last  night,  and  do  you  find 
your  hand  unsteady  and  your  eyes  watery  and  your 
head  racked  with  pain  next  morning  .''  Fever — you 
know  you've  got  a  temperature,  and  you  won't  have 
any  breakfast,  thanks — only  soda-water — which  every- 
one knows  is  good  for  malarial  troubles.  Has  your 
pretty  fane  t'e  written  up  from  Melbourne  to  say  that 
she  is  tired  of  waiting  for  you,  and  that  Mr.  Solomon- 
stein's  attentions  (Solomonstein,  Aarons,  Levi,  and 
Co.  own  half  of  Swanston  Street)  have  met  with  so 


262  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

much  approval  from  her  family  that— that,  in  fact, 
she  returns  your  ring  and  hopes  you  will  find  some- 
one more  worthy  of  you  ?  .  .  .  Fever — that  is  what 
makes  you  look  so  dark  under  the  eyes  and  so  sallow 
about  the  cheeks  and  keeps  you  awake  at  nights  for  a 
week  or  two  to  come  ...  at  least,  you  can  say  it  is, 
and  you  will  be  believed,  for  most  people  take  a  little 
fever  now  and  then  as  all  in  the  day's  work,  and  are 
almost  inclined  to  resent  the  impudence  of  the  lucky 
minority  who  never  have  any.  Yes,  there  is  some- 
thing to  be  said  for  even  the  malarial  nuisance. 

o 

By  and  by  we  run  under  the  lee  of  the  first  of  the 
Louisiade  group,  and  the  fever  patients  get  better 
with  astonishing  quickness. 

The  Government  yacht  does  not  trouble  much 
about  the  Louisiades  as  a  rule,  since  the  natives  are 
fairly  civilised  and  give  no  trouble  ;  but  we  are  on 
a  special  mission  this  trip.  One  versatile  vessel  is 
appearing  in  an  entirely  new  character — that  of  a 
man-of-war.  We  are  out  chasing  certain  Japanese 
luggers  which  have  been  awaking  suspicion  by  their 
movements,  and  if  we  catch  them  we  are  going  to 
give  them  "what  for" — that  is,  we  shall  confiscate 
them,  put  our  chief  officer  on  one  and  our  boatswain 
on  another,  and  tow  the  prizes  triumphantly  into 
Samarai. 

What  have  they  been  doing  ?  Well,  they  have 
been  taking  Papuans,  without  leave  or  license,  off  to 
the  pearling  grounds  at  Thursday  Island  ;  further- 
more,  they  have  walked  clean   through  customs  and 


HUNTING   THE   JAPS  263 

quarantine  regulations  wherever  they  have  been,  and 
recklessly  profaned  the  sanctities  of  "  pratique  " — an 
offence  that  only  the  ocean-going  traveller  can  appre- 
ciate at  its   full   value.      Short   shrift  they  will  get  if 
we  catch  them,  armed  with  the  full  authority  of  our 
racks   of  rifles  and  our  Nordenfeldt  gun.     But  shall 
we  catch  them  .''     A  pearling  lugger  draws  little  more 
water  than   a  whale-boat  ;   we   scrape  the   bottom   at 
fourteen    feet.      What    we    know    about    the     reefs, 
shoals,  and  "  vigias  "  on  this  semi-charted  coast  is  no 
small  thing — more   than  the  "B.P.'s"  know — much 
more  than   the  Admiralty  surveys  know — but  not  so 
much   by  a  good  way  as  the  wily  little  Jap  knows. 
That  sort  of  thing  is  his   speciality.     He  possesses 
charts  of  the   Great  Barrier   Reef  of  Australia   that 
make  legitimate   Government  surveys    look    foolish. 
He   knows   more  than   he  has  any  business  to  know 
about  Australian  harbours.     He  could  tell  the  Com- 
monwealth  much  that  they  would  like  to  hear  about 
the  Northern  Territory  and  the  Gulf  of  Carpentaria. 
And   if  we  could  get  hold  of  all  the  information  he 
possesses  about  the  dangerous,  half-charted,  all  un- 
lighted  and  unbeaconed  coasts  of  Papua,  a  great  deal 
of  work   would   be  saved  the  Survey  Department  of 
that  colony. 

What  does  he  want  with  it  .''  Well,  you  must  not 
ask  me,  because  you  do  not  really  want  to  hear — you 
nice  people  at  home.  He  is  your  ally,  and  your  ally 
can  do  no  wrong  ;  and  the  colour  line  is  a  nothing — 
a  chimera — "  an   idee  in  folks'  heads,"  as  the  prosaic 


264  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

lady  of  Maine  defined  the  science  of  psychology. 
Only  those  people  who  have  really  met  and  lived 
among  yellow  and  chocolate  and  red  and  black  fellow- 
creatures  think  that  colour  means  anything — and 
somehow  they  are  always  prejudiced.  In  the  days 
when  I  lived  among  white  people,  and  white  people 
only,  myself,  I  used  to  think  that  residence  in  the 
tropics  destroyed  anyone's  power  of  unprejudiced 
thought  on  these  questions  of  colour.  Now  I  am 
prejudiced  myself;  I  will  not  talk  to  you  at  all, 
because  I  know  what  you  feel  ;  but  I  think — yes,  1 
think  very  hard  and  very  loud  indeed  ! 


We  did  not  catch  those  Japs — those  dear  little, 
intelligent,  gentle,  open,  straightforward  Japs,  who 
had  doubtless  such  excellent  views  on  art,  and  spoke 
so  courteously  to  each  other  about  "  honourable  tea." 
We  never  even  caught  a  glimpse  of  their  sails  in  the 
distance  ;  nor  did  anyone  else,  then  or  later.  I 
inclined  at  the  time  to  think  that  they  had  been  met 
and  warned  by  a  third  lugger  which  had  put  into 
Samarai  a  few  days  earlier,  and  had  been  unkindly 
fined  £i§  for  sending  its  crew  ashore  wooding  and 
watering  without  the  formality  of  passing  the  doctor. 
.  .  .  When  the  Resident  Magistrate  reproved  the 
captain  for  this  lawless  deed  the  captain  was  very 
innocent,  very  sorry,  very  shy.  He  had  not  under- 
stood, that  was  all.  He  did  not  know  ships  had  to 
have  papers,   had  to   satisfy  customs  and  quarantine 


NO   ORANGES   TO-DAY  265 

officers  ;  he  had  never  heard  of  pratique.  Pratique  ? 
.    .    .   What  was  that  word  ? 

"  You  say  you're  from  Thursday  Island  ?"  queried 
the  R.M.      "  How  long  were  you  there  ? " 

"  Fi-ive  ye-ear,"  drawled  the  gentle  little  captain. 

I  wish  I  could  reproduce  the  snort  that  expressed 
the  R.M.'s  opinion  of  the  yellow  races  in  general, 
and  the  captain  in  particular. 

The  lugger  went  out,  warned  and  fined,  and  the 
two  other  luggers — the  really  naughty  ones — vanished 
from  Papua  almost  immediately  after.  So  we  did  not 
catch  them — much  to  my  regret  ;  it  seemed  to  me 
that  it  would  have  been  the  next  best  thing  to  living 
in  one  of  Marryat's  novels. 

However,  our  investigations  took  us  into  several 
places  quite  off  the  ordinary  track.  Teste  Island  was 
one  of  these.  It  is  a  small  bit  of  country,  two  and  a 
half  miles  by  a  quarter  of  a  mile,  but  very  pretty  in 
the  South  Sea  style — cloud-white  coral  beach,  rust- 
ling, swaying  palms,  green  lagoon,  and  light,  bright, 
flowery  soil.  Coral  soil  does  not  as  a  rule  grow 
heavy  bush,  and  these  islands  in  consequence  are  full 
of  clear  sunlight  and  gay  colouring,  with  scarce  a 
shadow  where  you  can  escape  from  the  midday 
glare. 

The  orange  groves  were  the  only  shady  spot  on 
Teste  Island;  we  coveted  the  golden  fruit  as  we 
stood  beneath  the  boughs,  but  alas!  the  Hesperidean 
dragon,  in  the  person  of  official  Methodism,  barred 
the  way.     The   day   was   Sunday  ;  it  was  wicked  to 


i66  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

pick  fruit  on   Sunday,   more  wicked  to  sell  it — the 
Teste  Islanders  would  none  of  us. 

Still,  the  island  is  interesting  to  spend  a  morning 
in.     We  walked  over  the  little  village,   and   saw  its 
quaint   houses,  all  set   up,  Papuan  fashion,  on  long 
wooden  legs,  all  with  transparent  floors  of  split  sticks, 
cool,  heavy  roofs   of  sago  thatch,  and  perpendicular 
ladders  leading  up  to  the  doors.     Inside,  there  were 
piles  of  fishing-nets,  beautifully  spun  and  netted  out 
of   bush    fibres,   a    few   baskets    of    native   make,    a 
number    of    netting    needles    prettily    carved,    some 
large   clay  pots,  and   in    the   middle    of    everything, 
carelessly  set   down   inside  the  slightest  of   wooden 
fences,    the  inevitable   native   fire.      How  it   is  that 
every  village  in   Papua  is  not  burned  down,  wholly 
or  partially,  every  day  in  the  year,  is  a  problem  that 
an  insurance  company's  secretary  might  find  difficulty 
to  solve.     Fires  are  always  kept  burning  in  the  houses 
— it  would  be  hard   to   say  what  for,   in  a  country 
where  cooking  is  only    done    once    a    day,  and    the 
temperature  is  like  the  stokehole  of  an  Indian  liner. 
These  fires  are  set  on  a  bed  of  white   ashes,  which 
in  its  turn  apparently  lies  right  on  the  fragile  stick 
floor,  and  is  surrounded  with   inflammable  things  of 
every  kind — leaf  baskets,  grass  skirts,  wooden  sleeping 
pillows,  etc. — the  whole  being  roofed  over  by  thatch, 
and  surrounded  by  walls  that  are  crackling  with  in- 
flammable dryness.      A  single  spark  ought  to  set  a 
whole  village  afire,  and  yet,  somehow,  it  never  does, 
not  even  when  the  whole  population  goes  out  fishing 


MEETING   OF  GREEKS  267 

and  leaves  all  the  fires  untended,  and  all  the  doors 
open.  If  this  is  not  a  miracle,  one  would  like  to 
know  what  it  is.  It  is  not  so  surprising  after  all, 
however,  for  in  this  impossible  country  ordinary 
laws  of  nature  seem  the  last  things  that  can  be 
counted  upon  to  act  in  an  ordinary  way. 

The   people  of  Teste   Island  wear  a  good  deal   of 
clothing,  in  some  cases,  though  in  others  the  narrow 
native   girdle    is    considered   enough.       The    women 
are    liberally    tattooed,   often    with    considerable   art. 
They  were  curious  about  our  ship,  and  interested  in 
the  call,  but  obviously  not  unfamiliar  with  the  ways 
of  white  people.     Indeed,  there  are  two  white   men 
who  spend  most  of  their  time  on  the  island,  or  in  its 
vicinity — Greeks  from  Southern  Europe,  speaking  no 
English  except  a  very  little  of  the  "  pigeon  "  variety. 
They  trade  with  the  natives  for  copra.     Greeks  were 
among   the   very    earliest   of  visitors    to    the   island, 
many  years  before    Papuan  colonisation    had  begun. 
Perhaps  one  of  the  oddest  incidents  of  the  voyage 
was  the  litde  scene  that  took  place  under  the  palms 
of  the  village,  our  chief  officer,  who  was  half  Greek 
by  descent,  conversing  in  fluent  phrases  with  the  two 
queer   white  wanderers,  and  importing  a  bewildering 
atmosphere   of  scholarship   and  ancient   colleges  and 
stately    resounding    sentences    learned    in    the    cool 
leisure  of  the  old  country,  long  ago,  when  there  was 
time  for  everything,  into  this  remote  tropic  island,  so 
far  away   from   "  anywhere."     No   news  was  derived 
from    this    "  meeting    of   Greeks,"    however.       Our 


268  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

quarry  had  not  been  seen  ;  and  we  went  back  to  the 
ship  unsatisfied. 

Next  day  we  reached  another  coral  island,  set  in 
another  beautiful  lagoon — Nivani,  about  the  same 
size  as  Teste  Island.  It  was  a  Government  station, 
with  a  resident  magistrate,  until  a  few  years  ago. 
But  it  is  now  deserted,  and  the  Government  buildings 
and  jail  are  falling  into  ruin.  There  are  a  few 
natives  on  the  island  cultivating  the  copra,  which  is 
leased  to  a  resident  in  Sud-Est.  Exquisitely  pretty, 
like  all  the  Louisiade  group,  is  this  little  island,  lying 
in  the  midst  of  a  brilliant  green  lagoon,  encircled  with 
a  snowy  white  beach,  and  decked  with  waving  palms 
and  feathery  casuarina,  one  of  the  loveliest  of  tropic 
trees.  There  are  many  gay  red  and  yellow  crotons 
in  the  bush,  scarlet-flowered  hibiscus,  too,  and  white 
and  yellow  flowers  of  several  kinds.  Pawpaw  grows 
freely,  also  edible  nuts.  The  climate  appears  to  be 
good,  and  free  from  the  damp  heat  of  the  mainland. 
This  is  an  example  of  a  good  many  similar  islands 
clustering  about  the  outer  end  of  New  Guinea,  which 
seem  to  offer  possibilities  to  the  would-be  copra 
planter.  They  are  the  best  possible  places  for  the 
cocoanut,  which  loves  the  near  neighbourhood  of  the 
sea,  and  many  of  them  are  already  extensively  planted, 
naturally  or  artificially.  A  man  who  wished  to  settle 
down  on  his  own  plantation  might  do  worse  than  look 
up  the  available  islands  about  the  New  Guinea  coast. 
Health  is  always  better  on  the  small  islands  than  on 
the   mainland,   and   there  are  pleasant  places   to  live 


ISLANDS   TO   LET  269 

in,  not  to  mention   the  convenience  of  transport  of 
produce,  as  compared  with  inland  districts. 

Two  more  islands  next  day  of  the  same  kind, 
beautiful,  peaceful,  remote,  full  of  the  sound  of  the  sea 
and  the  low  murmur  of  palms,  and  thinly  inhabited 
by  peaceful  and  harmless  natives.  Moturina  and  Pana 
Pom-Pom  it  was  this  time.  We  went  ashore  and  made 
the  usual  grand  tour,  returning  to  the  ship  with  a 
feeling  of  vague  dissatisfaction  at  the  requirements  of 
official,  literary,  and  business  life,  that  forbade  us  one 
and  all  to  buy  islands  and  settle  down  upon  them,  and 
cease  from  troubling  about  Parliaments,  or  mails,  or 
dates,  or  times,  or  seasons,  any  more  for  ever. 

I,  who  had  known  the  true  Island  world  well  and 
long,  and  seen  many  who  realised  the  curiously 
universal  dream  of  taking  an  Island  to  live  In,  as 
in  a  kingdom  of  their  own,  saw  many  memories  flit 
across  the  empty  sky.  In  the  long  pull  back  to  the 
ship.  .  .  .  How  often  in  far-away  Tahiti,  or  Samoa, 
or  In  little-known  Isolated  groups,  I  had  seen  that 
dream  realised — the  trader  or  planter  settled  down  in 
his  own  little  country,  perhaps  a  few  acres,  perhaps 
many  square  miles  in  extent,  with  his  wife  and  family, 
and  his  small  following  of  native  labour,  for  all  society, 
and  his  cutter  the  only  means  of  communication  with 
the  outside  world.  .  .  .  Were  they  happy,  these  new 
Swiss  Family  Robinsons,  in  that  life  that  so  many 
envy  them  ?  Yes — and  no.  I  have  heard  a  Fiji 
planter,  who  had  tried  the  life  for  some  years,  declare 
that  no  man  would  keep  It  up,  except  out  of  interest. 


270  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

after  the  first  five  seasons,  and  that  those  who  were 
obliged  to  hang  on  were  heartily  sick  of  it.  I  have 
known  a  man  and  his  wife,  used  to  a  complex  and 
cultured  society,  perfectly  happy  for  more  than  twice 
five  years  in  an  island  isolated  from  all  but  the 
rarest  calls.  I  have  known  a  good  many  who  dropped 
down  to  the  level  of  the  surrounding  natives — usually 
through  that  curse  of  island  life,  a  native  marriage — 
and  some  who  kept  well  above  it,  yet  became  never- 
theless partially  unfitted  for  white  society.  On  the 
whole,  one  is  compelled  to  allow  that  the  ideal  life  on 
an  island  of  one's  own  does  not  appear  to  have  ideal 
effects  when  translated  out  of  the  visionary  into  the 
concrete.  It  is  best  suited  to  the  very  old  or  the 
very  young — those  who  have  done  with  life,  and  only 
desire  to  rest  and  dream  until  the  end,  or  those  who 
are  still  so  rich  in  the  unspent  capital  of  golden  years 
that  they  can  afford  to  throw  away  a  few  on  the  chance 
that  the  life  may  really  prove  to  be  all  that  they  desire. 
We  returned  to  Samarai  after  a  cruise  of  several 
days,  disappointed  as  regarded  the  Japs,  but  well 
pleased  with  what  we  had  seen.  I  cannot  say  exactly 
what  lands  are  to  let,  and  what'  are  still  free  among 
these  island  groups,  but  it  may  be  generally  stated 
that  there  is  a  good  deal  to  be  had,  practically  without 
rent  (though  with  conditions  as  to  improvement),  and 
that  the  land  is  in  most  cases  excellent  for  copra.  The 
natives  of  the  Louisiade  group  are  among  the  most 
civilised  in  New  Guinea,  and  have  in  most  cases  been 
Christianised  (more  or  less)  for  many  years. 


ROAST   PIG  271 

The  Government  nursery  at  Milne  Bay,  half  a 
day's  run  down  the  coast,  had  to  be  visited  after  this. 
Milne  Bay  is  a  very  peaceful  place  in  these  days ;  you 
could  take  your  aged  grandaunt,  or  your  timid  sister- 
in-law  who  has  never  been  out  of  her  own  country, 
and  leave  her  there  for  six  months,  with  a  comfortable 
certainty  of  finding  her  all  in  one  piece,  if  somewhat 
bored,  when  you  returned.  It  was  not  always  so, 
however.  Less  than  twenty  years  ago  the  Milne  Bay 
tribes  used  to  eat  any  stranger  who  landed  there  ;  and 
it  took  much  "faithful  dealing"  on  the  part  of  the 
Government,  backed  up  by  the  Armed  Native  Con- 
stabulary, to  improve  their  company  manners.  Milne 
Bay  was  one  of  the  districts  where  the  gentle  Papuan 
used  to  roast  his  game  alive — pig  when  there  was 
nothing  better,  man  when  he  was  to  be  had.  Roast- 
ing pigs  alive  is  an  amusement  by  no  means  extinct  in 
the  Territory  even  yet.  The  Papuan  is  fully  alive  to 
the  value  of  self-advertisement,  and  by  simply  omit- 
ting the  preliminary  knock  on  the  head,  he  has  it  in 
his  power  to  let  every  native  for  two  miles  around 
know  most  unmistakably  that  there  is  going  to  be 
roast  pork  for  dinner  at  a  certain  village  by  and  by — 
which  is  naturally  gratifying  to  the  village,  if  not  to 
the  pork.  Roasting  men  after  the  same  fashion  has 
been  so  sternly  discountenanced  by  the  Government 
that  the  practice  is  supposed  to  be  extinct  ;  although 
it  would  be  hard  to  say  what  may  or  may  not  go  on 
in  the  unexplored  inner  country  of  the  main  ranges. 

To   Milne   Bay,  some   time  in   the    early   nineties, 


272  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

came  a  ship  with  certain  sailors,  and  they  went  ashore 
for  wood  and  water.  One  of  them  was  missing  on 
the  return  to  the  boats,  and  the  others  set  out  to  look 
for  him.  They  did  not  find  him,  and  retreated  dis- 
consolate. On  the  next  day  they  hunted  again  ;  still 
no  trace  of  the  missing  comrade,  but  the  sailors — 
rough  men  though  they  were — were  sickened  and 
disgusted  by  the  awful  cries  of  a  pig  which  was  evi- 
dently being  roasted  alive  in  the  neighbourhood. 
Their  numbers  were  small,  and  they  thought  it  wiser 
not  to  incense  the  natives  by  interference,  so  they 
went  back  to  the  ship  and  next  day  hunted  again 
with  despairing  hearts.  .  .  .  They  came  upon  the 
village  of  the  feast  unexpectedly,  but  they  found  no 
remains  of  the  pig.  There  had  not  been  any  pig. 
There  had  been  a  man — a  white  man — a  man  whose 
voice  they  had  mistaken  for  the  voice  of  a  brute — 
their  comrade. 

Well,  Milne  Bay  is  improved  since  then.  We 
went  ashore  and  walked  to  the  Government  station, 
and  I  got  separated  from  the  rest  of  the  party  as 
usual,  looking  for  illusory  iguanas  and  mythical 
orchids,  and  found  them  (the  party)  again,  as  usual, 
without  causing  anxiety  or  feeling  it.  And  we  spent 
a  pleasant  hour  or  two  there  looking  at  things  nobody 
understood,  and  came  back  to  the  Merrie  England 
quite  happily  and  safely,  nothing  having  been  cooked 
but  tea,  and  nothing  eaten  but  ship  biscuit. 

The  Government  nursery — one  of  four — was  very 
like  the  specimen  I  had  already  seen  on  the  Laloki 


NINETY-DAY   MAIZE  273 

River.  No  "frills"  of  any  kind  -a  bungalow  of 
native  materials  for  the  curator  ;  a  few  long  sheds 
with  brushwood  roots,  sheltering  rows  and  rows  of 
neatly  labelled  plants  in  boxes,  beds,  and  pots  ;  rough 
walks  outside,  leading  to  little  plots  of  industrial 
plants,  kept  ready  for  sale.  A  useful,  cheap,  sensible 
sort  of  place  not  meant  to  show  to  visitors.  A  place 
where  you  can  go  and  buy  your  rubber  seeds  or 
stumps,  your  hemp  plants,  your  cocoanuts,  your 
coffee,  cotton,  spice,  or  drug  seeds  cheap  and  fresh, 
and  take  them  down  to  your  plantation  in  good 
condition. 

"  Ninety-day "  maize  was  growing  here  among 
many  other  plants  that  illustrated  the  richness  of 
the  soil.  Four  crops  a  year  you  can  grow  of  this 
maize  in  suitable  districts.  It  would  be  an  exacting 
planter  who  would  ask  more. 

There  seems  to  be  no  good  reason  why  the  Papuan 
planter  should  not  grow  the  food  for  his  own  labour, 
and  avoid  the  heavy  expense  of  purchasing  imported 
rice.  At  present  rice  is  the  chief  food  on  all  planta- 
tions ;  but  the  small  experiments  that  have  been  made 
with  maize  seem  to  prove  that  the  natives  would  rather 
have  it,  and  that  they  work  better  on  this  tasty  and 
nourishing  grain  than  on  the  ordinary  rice  ration. 
Why  does  no  one  grow  it  on  a  large  scale  ?  Ap- 
parently because  all  the  plantations  are  new,  and  all 
the  planters  are  in  a  terrible  hurry,  and  it  is  easier 
to  order  a  couple  of  hundred  mats  of  rice  from  the 
stores  at  seven  shillings  a  mat  than  to  sow  maize,  and 

T 


274  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

wait  three  or  four  months  for  it.  .  .  .  Another 
of  the  "reasons  why"  that  explain  the  unprofitable- 
ness of  certain  profitable  and  promising  -  looking 
estates. 

Another  quick-change  for  the  Merrie  England  fol- 
lowed our  agricultural  trip.  This  time  we  were  out 
on  salvage  work.  One  of  the  Government  schooners 
had  been  wrecked  on  a  reef  at  the  back  of  nowhere- 
in-particular,  and  we  had  to  get  her  off,  or  at  least  to 
see  how  it  could  be  done. 

It  was  near  East  Cape,  not  far  from  the  D'Entre- 
casteaux  Islands,  that  the  schooner  had  come  to  grief. 
The  D'Entrecast-eaux,  like  the  Louisiades,  would  be 
regarded  as  a  group  of  considerable  importance  if  they 
were  situated  anywhere  else  than  off  the  end  of  this 
great  island-continent.  Normandy  is  seven  or  eight 
times  as  big  as  Malta.  Ferguson  would  make  nearly 
four  of  the  Isle  of  Man,  and  there  are  others  in  the 
group  by  no  means  negligible  in  size.  But  Papua 
does  not  trouble  very  much  about  them,  nor  about  the 
Bouvonloirs,  the  Lusangays,  the  Laughlins,  and  other 
miscellaneous  groups  scattered  here  and  there.  The 
Trobriands  and  the  Woodlarks,  on  the  contrary,  are 
much  thought  of ;  one  has  pearls  and  the  other  gold, 
and  that  is  something  worth  talking  about. 

We  started  out  from  Samarai  on  a  squally,  windy 
day,  and  made  our  way  through  China  Straits  out 
among  the  D'Entrecasteaux. 

Very  beautiful  is  the  scenery  in  this  remote  corner 
of  Papua — green,  forest-clad  mountains  rising  steeply 


SALVAGE  275 

from  the  stormy  edge  of  the  sea  ;  blue  vaporous 
peaks,  four  to  seven  thousand  feet  in  height,  soaring 
away  into  heaven  beyond.  There  are  many  islands, 
too,  each  exquisite  enough  to  make  the  beauty  of 
miles  of  coast-line,  were  it  set  by  itself.  But  the 
wind  and  the  rain,  and  the  ceaseless  squalls,  through 
which  the  ship  plunged  and  squattered  in  her  own 
violent  way,  veiled  most  of  these  beauties  in  driving 
folds  of  mist.  The  wreck  was  sighted  late  in  the  day 
— a  decent  little  schooner,  lying  comfortably  on  a  reef 
in  a  sheltered  bay,  within  a  cable's  length  of  land. 
We  tried  to  tow  her  off,  but  she  sank  in  deep  water, 
and  her  latter  state  seemed  worse  than  her  first.  The 
ship  could  not  stay  to  make  any  more  attempts  at 
rescue,  but  it  was  arranged  that  the  unlucky  schooner 
was  to  be  refloated — with  cocoanuts  ! — by  men  sent 
out  from  Sumarai,  and  we  went  on  our  way  again. 
Did  anyone,  outside  of  Papua  the  Peculiar,  ever  hear 
of  filling  the  hold  of  a  vessel  with  unhusked  cocoa- 
nuts,  and  so  floating  her  to  the  surface  .''  Yet  this 
has  been  done  before  in  the  Possession,  and  seems  to 
be  one  of  the  recognised  methods  of  salvage. 

The  Woodlarks  were  our  next  port  of  call.  They 
are  a  fairly  important  group,  consisting  of  one  large 
island,  35  miles  by  7,  and  several  islets  of  small  area. 
Gold  was  discovered  here  many  years  ago  ;  and  ever 
since  there  has  been  a  fair-sized  mining  population, 
scraping  out  a  living  somehow  or  other  in  various  parts 
of  the  big  island.  The  death-rate  among  the  miners  in 
the  early  days  was  appalling.     As  was  the  case  on  the 


276  THE   NEW    NEW    GUINEA 

notorious  Mambare  River  some  years  later,  the  pro- 
spectors of  Woodlark  came  ill-provided  with  money 
and  stores,  ignorant  of  medicines,  reckless  about  chills 
and  fever,  and  they  paid  the  penalty.  The  place  is  no 
sanatorium  at  best  ;  under  the  conditions  of  the  early 
gold  rush  it  became  a  death-trap  from  which  few 
escaped.  Health  conditions  are  much  improved  now- 
adays ;  but  Woodlark  has  certainly  given  its  full 
contribution  to  the  bad  name  that  has  handicapped 
this  unlucky   dog  of  a  Papua  for  so  many  years. 

Woodlark  has  an  evil  reputation  as  an  incurably 
rainy  place,  and  it  fully  lived  up  to  its  bad  name 
during  the  three  days  of  our  stay.  The  low,  dark 
green  shores  were  swathed  in  wet  mist  when  we  came 
to  anchor  in  the  bay,  and  squall  after  squall  of  fierce 
rain  swept  over  the  ship,  each  promising  by  its  very 
violence  to  bring  about  a  "  clear  up,"  and  each  hope- 
lessly failing.  We  went  ashore  in  a  steady  downpour, 
which  hid  everything  of  the  scenery  save  a  glimpse  of 
a  long  dark  creek  running  inland,  a  canyon  between 
veritable  cliffs  of  gloomy  forest,  and  stumbled  upon 
a  wet  clay  track  to  the  Customs  Collector's  house. 
Papua  is  a  place  well  worth  incurring  any  hardship  or 
any  inconvenience  to  see,  but  there  are  times — yes, 
there  certainly  are — when  one  asks  oneself  what  one 
is  doing  in  a  country  that  obliges  the  luckless  traveller 
to  live  the  most  of  his  time  afoot  on  slippery  tracks 
as  steep  as  a  roof,  in  a  temperature  like  that  of  a 
Turkish  bath,  with  rainstorms,  mud,  mosquitoes, 
scrub  itch,  and  ants  as  an  almost  invariable  accompani- 


WHY  ?  277 

mcnt  of  the  day's  march.  Why,  or  how  one  finds 
pleasure  in  starting  forth  every  morning  in  clean,  cool 
clothes,  and  coming  back  every  evening  a  mass  of 
heat-sodden  dirt,  and  only  fit  to  go  into  the  bath 
at  once — why  one  submits  tamely  to  an  absence  of 
mails,  news,  new  clothes,  fresh  food,  amusements, 
everything  that  makes  life  pleasant  to  live,  in  other 
countries  — and  all  to  see  a  few  savage  cannibals  in 
their  native  homes,  to  visit  a  few  gold  mines,  pearl 
fisheries,  plantations  .   .   . 

There  is  no  answer  to  questions  like  these — 
only  the  old  illogical  reply  that  such  things  are, 
because  they  are.  It  may  be  that  the  savage  ancestor 
calls,  and  must  be  heard.  It  may  be  that  the  over- 
flavoured,  over-complicated  life  of  cities  creates  an 
irresistible  thirst  for  simpler  food.  At  all  events, 
countries  like  Papua  beckon,  and  catch,  and  hold  as 
do  no  others   in   the   world — reason   or   no    reason. 

The  three-mile  walk  to  the  Kulumadau  fields  is 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  pieces  of  scenery  in  Papua, 
even  in  the  midst  of  a  downpour — but  it  does  not 
look  healthy.  The  track  runs  across  low,  inky, 
gluey  swamps,  tangled  over  with  poisonously  rich 
and  heavy  greenery.  Huge  tropical  trees,  with 
heavy  leaves,  tower  into  the  black  sky,  and  shut  off 
half  the  dim  light  spared  by  the  rain.  Dead  logs 
lie  across  dark  stagnant  pools  ;  weird  fungi  like  the 
ghosts  of  pale  lilies  star  the  rotting  limbs  of  fallen 
trees.  There  are  orchids  by  the  thousands  in  these 
forest  swamps,  clinging  to  the  immense  branches  that 


278  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

curtain  the  heavy  sky — many  of  them  rare  and  valu- 
able, but  all  hard  to  distinguish  from  one  another,  in 
this  season  when  flowers  are  comparatively  few.  The 
track  is  not  of  the  worst  ;  one  can  take  an  occasional 
look  round  as  one  walks,  whereas  on  most  Papuan 
paths  the  scenery  must  go  unnoted  if  the  traveller 
is  to  keep  his  feet. 

Kulumadau  is  a  desolate-looking  spot  enough. 
The  mills  are  not  working  to-day,  and  the  ramshackle 
buildings,  rough  tram  rails,  and  raw  heaps  of  "  tail- 
ings "  are  depressing  in  aspect  under  the  gloomy  sky, 
without  the  life  of  passing  workmen  and  the  throb- 
bing of  engines  to  enliven  the  place,  as  no  doubt 
they  do  when  the  mines  are  "  going."  This  field, 
we  learn,  has  been  twelve  years  open,  and  the  best  of 
the  gold  has  long  since  been  taken  out  of  it.  It  has 
not  been  worked  for  some  time,  but  the  two  rival 
companies  which  owned  the  gold-bearing  district  have 
lately  amalgamated,  and  the  field,  which  is  now  known 
as  the  Kulumadau  and  Woodlark  Proprietary,  is  ex- 
pected to  do  rather  better. 

A  hundred  and  twenty  acres  are  owned  by  the 
company.  It  is  not  certain  that  the  whole  of  the 
gold-bearing  reef  is  included  in  this  claim  ;  indeed, 
an  Australian  miner  of  much  experience  lately  gave 
it  as  his  opinion  that  the  reef  might  run  right  across 
the  island.  According  to  the  same  authority,  there 
is  sure  to  be  more  in  the  uncleared  timber.  Prospects 
on  Woodlark,  however,  either  here  or  at  the  alluvial 
fields,    are    not   good  enough   to  warrant  anyone  in 


GOLDFIELDS  279 

England  leaving  his  own  country  to  seek  his  fortune 
there. 

Eighty  thousand  tons  of  tailings,  the  relics  of 
earlier  workings,  are  lying  close  to  the  mills  waiting 
for  treatment  by  the  cyanide  process,  which  is  ex- 
pected to  produce  a  fair  return  of  gold.  A  good 
quantity  of  concentrates  have  been  sent  down  to  New 
South  Wales,  with  satisfactory  results.  The  reef  at 
the  time  of  my  visit  was  being  worked  at  a  depth  of 
470  feet,  and  producing  from  five  pennyweights  to 
an  ounce  per  ton. 

At  Busai,  several  miles  further  inland,  the  workings 
are  almost  entirely  alluvial.  Here  again  the  best 
days  are  over,  but  there  is  something  still  to  be  had. 
The  field  is  rather  restricted,  not  covering  more  than 
about  one  square  mile.  There  are  less  than  twenty 
white  men  on  it,  and  most  of  the  field  is  owned 
by  three  of  them.  These  three  employ  100  of  the 
150  boys  working  on  the  field.  No  one,  it  seems, 
can  make  much  on  Busai  unless  he  can  afford  to 
employ  a  fair  number  of  boys,  as  it  is  only  the  cheap 
Papuan  labour  that  makes  the  field  payable  at  all. 
Each  boy  can  obtain  about  half  a  pennyweight  a  day, 
the  gold  running  half  a  grain  to  the  dish.  In  the 
early  days  a  great  deal  of  rough  gold  was  found  in 
the  coral,  under  the  thin  surface  of  soil,  but  this  has 
been  almost  all  worked  out.  One  man  was  reported 
to  be  doing  well  out  of  a  claim  of  dyke  formation, 
20  feet  wide,  composed  of  quartz,  gossan,  and  iron- 
stone, and  producing  three  to  ten  pennyweights  per 


28o  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

ton.  This  was  the  only  claim  of  its  kind  at  Busai, 
the  rest  being  all  surface.  No  prospecting  at  all  had 
been  done  of  late,  although  it  was  thought  very  pos- 
sible that  more  gold  might  remain  to  be  discovered 
in  the  bush. 

The  health  of  the  goldfields  is  good,  and  fever  now 
almost  unknown. 

The  current  rate  of  wages  for  native  boys  is  los. 
per  month.  Their  food — rice  and  tinned  beef — 
costs  8s.  There  seems  to  be  little  or  no  trouble  with 
the  labour,  the  boys  being  tractable  and  industrious, 
and  capable  of  really  responsible  work,  such  as  feed- 
ing batteries,  etc.  The  natives  are  well  treated,  and 
seem  to  enjoy  good  health. 

All  this  is  told  me  by  the  manager  of  the  Kulumadau 
mine.  I  do  not  understand  most  of  it,  and  it  does 
not  interest  me  in  the  least.  Our  Australian  tourist 
passenger,  on  the  contrary,  drinks  in  every  item  of 
information  he  can  get,  and  talks  and  listens  with 
sparkling  eyes.  I  am  wet  and  dirty  and  bored  ; 
I  want  to  yawn  very  badly,  and  when  the  manager 
takes  a  lump  of  dirty  grey  slag  out  of  the  office  safe 
and  shows  it  to  me  triumphantly,  saying  that  that  is 
gold,  almost  pure,  I  feel  like  crying.  If  this  is  a 
gold  mine,  give  me  the  mouth  of  a  Cardiff  coal-shaft 
for  real  interest  by  preference. 

I  do  not  go  on  to  Busai,  and  am  sorry  afterwards, 
as  one  always  is  sorry  when  one  has  shirked  a 
"  sight,"  and  it  is  too  late  to  repent.  I  go  back  to 
the  beach  and  take  the  Alerrie  England's  whaleboat  up 


THE   UNBELIEVABLE  281 

the  river  looking  for  alligators.     I  do  not  know  why 
I  am  looking  for  them  ;  neither  myself  nor  any  one 
of  the  "boys  "  has  a  gun,  and  the  "boy  "  who  says 
he  comes  from  the  parts  where  they  catch  and  drag 
alligators  out  of  rivers  by  their  tails  does  not  seem  at 
all    anxious  to   sight  a  wicked   fishy   eye  or  a  black 
scaly  paw  among  the  mangrove  roots,  in  spite  of  his 
boasting.     We  glide   in   whispers   up   and   down  the 
creeks  ;    it  is  intensely  still  and  dim  and  green  and 
deathly.     The  trees  have  long  mossy  beards,  hanging 
down    straight    as    plumb-lines.     The    knitted    and 
tangled   liana   ropes   drop  loose  above  the  river  with 
never  a  sway  or  quiver.     The  mangroves  and  palms 
and    sword-leafed  pandanus  are  mirrored  without  a 
flaw  in  the  dead,  still,  tea-green  water.     One  feels  as 
if    one    were    living    in    a    stereoscopic    photograph 
roughly  coloured  with  a  wash  of  green  paint.      The 
boys  and  1   have  had  enough  of  it  before  very  long, 
and   head  back  for  the  ship  again.     As  we  cross  the 
great   open   lagoon,  outside  a  thin   black  streak  bars 
the  yellow  reflections  of  the  watery  sunset  half  a  mile 
away.     It   is   an  alligator,  at  last — hopelessly  out  of 
reach.  .    .    .  Just  like  them  ! 

A  few  days  later  saw  the  Merrie  England  dropping 
anchor  off  the  strangest,  wildest,  weirdest,  and  most 
remote  of  the  many  wonderful  places  that  we  visited 
during  that  unique  voyage — Rossel  Island. 

I  find  it  hard  to  say  anything  about  Rossel  Island, 
because  the  place  is  such  a  tissue  of  improbabilities 
and  impossibilities — such  a  monument  of  the  wonder- 


282  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

ful  and  bizarre — that  one  cannot  entertain  even  a 
faint  hope  of  having  one's  tale  believed  down  in  the 
quiet  countries  where  things  run  along  the  lines  of 
the  probable  and  ordinary.  But  the  attempt  must  be 
made,  for  no  one  could  visit  Rossel  and  refrain  from 
telling  what  he  had  seen. 

It  is  the  easternmost  and  most  isolated  of  the 
Louisiade  group,  eighteen  miles  in  length,  six  in 
breadth,  and  extremely  precipitous  in  outline.  Its 
mountains  run  to  nearly  4000  feet  in  height.  Mount 
Rossel,  the  tallest,  a  gloomy  overhanging  peak, 
wreathed  in  mysterious  veils  of  cloud,  looms  high 
above  the  dark  inlet  in  the  southern  side,  where  at 
long  and  irregular  intervals  ships  come  to  anchor. 
Round  about  the  intensely  clear,  intensely  green 
deep  waters  of  the  bay,  the  lesser  hills  stand 
shouldering  one  another  right  down  to  the  precipice 
edges  that  overhang  the  sea.  Dark  forest  cloaks  the 
heights  ;  white  cockatoos,  small  as  butterflies  against 
the  towering  walls  of  the  mountain,  flit  and  scream 
through  the  fiery  yellow  green  of  the  sunset,  that 
fills  all  the  hollows  of  the  bay  with  weird  goblin 
lights  and  shades  as  we  slowly  steam  up  to  our 
anchorage,  and  let  the  long  chains  roar  home.  A 
wicked-looking  place.  A  place  solitary,  remote,  un- 
human  beyond  the  power  of  pen  to  describe — a  place, 
in  brief,  that  only  Papua  could  produce. 

A  former  governor,  calling  at  Rossel  in  1891, 
described  the  natives  as  *'  the  mildest,  quietest,  and 
most  inoffensive  in  the  Possession,"  and  characterised 


WERE   THEY   EATEN?  283 

the  anecdote  (well  known  to  all  Papua)  about  the 
eating  of  326  shipwrecked  Chinamen  in  1858,  as 
incredible.  The  official  no  doubt  meant  well,  but 
his  stay  was  extremely  short,  and  he  had  no  means  of 
finding  out  the  real  state  of  affairs  on  the  island,  as 
there  was  not  then,  nor  for  long  after,  any  white 
man  in  the  place  who  could  give  information,  and 
the  Rossel  language  is  known  to  none  outside  the 
islanders  themselves — for  the  best  of  reasons,  as  I 
shall  later  show.  We  had  the  advantage  of  a  three 
days'  stay,  occupied  by  a  grand  hunt  for  five  mur- 
derers (whom  the  Governor,  Judge  Murray,  wished 
to  bring  to  justice)  and  by  a  good  deal  of  general 
investigation.  In  this  last  we  were  much  helped  by 
the  information  given  by  two  Australian  traders  who 
have  lived  for  five  years  alone  on  Rossel — a  feat 
never  attempted  before  their  coming,  and  one  which 
has  been  near  costing  them  their  lives  many  times. 
These  young  men  are  well  educated,  know  something 
of  folk-lore  and  ethnology,  and  have  taken  pains  to 
find  out  everything  possible  about  the  customs  of  the 
people  among  whom  they  live — in  which  they  differ 
exceedingly  from  the  average  trader.  They  have 
done  much,  in  a  quiet  way,  to  make  the  island  safer 
both  to  whites  and  natives  than  it  has  ever  been 
before  (which  is  not  saying  a  great  deal,  however), 
and,  in  the  absence  of  all  missions,  have  certainly 
exerted  a  restraining  anci  humanising  influence  in  a 
place  that  wants  it  as  badly  as  ever  did  any  place  on 
the  earth. 


284  THE   NEW   NEW    GUINEA 

For  the  Rossel  Islanders  are  not  by  any  means 
mild  and  harmless.  The  mistake  was  a  pardonable 
one,  due  no  doubt  to  the  fact  that  this  people 
seldom  carries  arms  of  any  kind,  while  the  dangerous 
western  tribes  go  armed  to  the  teeth  with  spears, 
bow  and  arrows,  stone  axes,  or  European-made  toma- 
hawks. The  Rossel  Islanders  are  small  and  not 
formidable  in  appearance,  though  their  expression  is 
ugly,  even  villainous.  They  carry  no  offensive 
weapons  as  a  rule,  and  they  do  not  look  as  if  they 
could  harm  anyone,  even  if  they  would. 

And  yet  these  quiet  little  men  are  among  the  most 
expert,  practised,  and  determined  murderers  in  the 
whole  world. 

They  murder  a  man  or  woman  at  the  death  of 
every  chief.  They  used  until  very  lately  to  murder 
one  man  or  woman  for  every  other  who  died — in 
consequence  of  which  the  population  of  the  island  is 
very  small.  They  murder  anyone  who  is  unpopular, 
anyone  who  gives  information  to  Government 
authorities,  anyone  who  breaks  a  taboo.  If  a  man 
steals,  and  they  do  not  wish  to  inflict  the  extreme 
penalty  on  himself,  they  murder  the  woman  who 
cooks  his  food.  They  have  tried  to  murder  the  two 
traders  more  than  once,  but  now,  realising  that  these 
men  are  the  sole  source  of  their  tobacco  supply, 
they  never  threaten  violence.  But  nevertheless  mur- 
der is  one  of  their  chief  occupations. 

How  is  it  done  ?  In  one  way  only.  The  Rossel 
Islanders  are  the  most  expert  smotherers  ever  heard 


EXPERT   SMOTHERERS  285 

of  in  fact  or  fiction.  They  do  not  carry  weapons, 
because  they  do  not  want  them.  All  they  need  to  do 
when  they  mark  down  a  victim  is  to  signal  to  their 
associates,  and  in  an  instant  seven  or  eight  ot  them 
have  crowded  round  the  doomed  man,  and  in  utter 
silence,  if  need  be,  are  squeezing  out  his  life.  One 
holds  his  mouth  and  nose,  others  seize  his  limbs,  and 
when  they  have  got  him  down  another  kneels  and 
jumps  upon  his  chest.  It  is  over  in  a  minute — there 
is  little  struggle,  no  bloodshed,  no  noise,  but  the  work 
is  done. 

If  a  Rossel  Islander  wants  a  pigeon  for  supper  he 
has  no  need  of  bow  or  spear.  He  waits  till  dusk,  and 
then  steals  out  to  a  tree  where  a  row  of  sleepy  pigeons 
or  parrots  are  dozing  on  a  branch.  Noiselessly  as  a 
cat  he  climbs  the  tree,  and  far  more  noiselessly  than 
any  beast  seizes  and  smothers  one  bird  after  the  other, 
without  even  disturbing  the  rest,  until  he  has  as 
many  as  he  wants.  He  will  even  paddle  out  to  a 
rock  in  mid-ocean  and  smother  the  sea-birds  roosting 
on  it  before  they  wake.  .  .  .  Truly,  a  man  of  strange 
accomplishments. 

When  the  "  mild  and  gentle  "  Rossel  Islander  does 
not  wish  to  kill  or  eat  his  victim  at  once,  but  merely 
desires  to  secure  him,  he  and  his  satellites  bend  the 
wretch's  limbs  one  after  another  back  over  a  log  or  a 
large  stone,  breaking  all  his  arm  and  leg  bones,  so 
that  he  cannot  escape.  There  is  a  good  deal  of 
cannibalism  still  in  the  island,  though  not  so  much 
as  there  was  four  or  five  years  ago,  when   the   men 


286  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

employed  by  the  trader  to  cut  copra  for  him  used  some- 
times to  come  to  work  smelling  hideously  of  decayed 
human  flesh  after  a  feast  held  the  night  before. 
Sinister  indeed,  at  the  death  of  a  chief,  are  the  looks 
cast  by  the  relatives  and  mourners  at  one  another, 
before  the  victim  of  the  funeral  feast  is  fixed  on.  No 
one  knows  who  will  be  sacrificed,  and  the  savages 
wander  about  eyeing  one  another  suspiciously  and 
nervously  for  hours.  There  is  not  one  of  them  who 
has  not  many  a  time  choked  the  life  out  of  warm, 
palpitating  flesh,  and  eaten  of  that  very  flesh  after  ; 
but  bold  as  they  are  when  banded  together  like 
wolves,  they  are,  like  wolves,  cowards  alone,  and 
afraid  of  the  pack.  ...  By  and  by  it  is  noticed 
that  the  glances  of  the  crowd  fall  oftener  on  a  cer- 
tain man  or  woman  than  any  other.  The  creature 
thus  singled  out  sees  it,  and  makes  frantic  eflbrts  to 
divert  attention  to  someone  else,  well  knowing  what 
will  follow.  He  may  succeed,  or  he  may  not — 
probably  not,  for  every  man  is  so  anxious  for  him- 
self that  the  first  sign  of  general  consent  is  hailed 
as  a  deliverance  by  all  but  the  victim.  The  wretched 
creature  turns  to  run,  and  the  pack  are  on  him  in  an 
instant.  Not  to  catch  him,  however — there  would  be 
little  sport  in  that — but  to  hunt  him,  and  run  him 
down  by  degrees.  They  will  even  give  him  a  start, 
let  him  away,  and  perhaps  not  attempt  to  catch  him 
for  a  day  or  so,  until  they  are  fairly  ready,  and  then 
the  whole  tribe  joins  in,  each  man  spurred  on  by  the 
deadly  fear  that  the  fickle  crowd  may  turn  and  fix  on 


FOND   OF   CHINAMEN  287 

himself,  and  there  is  hunting  over  hill  and  gully, 
across  river  and  over  crocodile-haunted  swamp,  hour 
after  hour,  until  at  last  the  quarry  is  run  down,  and 
the  deadly  circle  of  the  smotherers,  of  which  he  has 
so  often  made  a  part,  closes  round  himself  at  last, 
once  and  for  all. 

The  story  of  the  Chinamen,  according  to  the 
islanders  themselves,  is  not  fiction,  but  truth.  They 
are  fond  of  relating  it  as  one  of  the  great  deeds  of 
their  ancestors,  and  fairly  glory  in  the  tale.  In  1858, 
a  shipload  of  Chinamen  was  being  taken  down  to 
Australia.  The  vessel  was  wrecked  upon  a  reef  close 
to  Rossel  Island.  The  officers  escaped  in  boats,  but 
were  never  afterwards  heard  of.  As  for  the  Chinamen, 
numbering  326,  the  natives  captured  them,  and  put 
them  on  a  small  barren  island,  where  they  had  no 
food,  and  no  means  of  getting  away.  They  kept  their 
prisoners  supplied  with  food  from  the  mainland,  and 
every  now  and  then  carried  a  few  of  them  away  to  eat, 
until  all  but  one  old  man  had  been  devoured.  This 
last  succeeded  eventually  in  getting  away,  and  told 
something  of  the  story,  which  seems  to  have  met  with 
general  disbelief.  True  it  is,  however,  on  the  evidence 
of  the  sons  of  those  who  did  the  deed. 

Moreover,  the  natives  of  the  surrounding  islands 
say  that  during  the  years  following  the  shipwreck, 
the  Rossel  Islanders  were  fond  of  bringing  Chinamen 
about  in  their  boats,  hawking  them  like  pigs  among 
the  cannibals  of  other  places,  and  that  quite  a  large 
number  were   sold  in    this    way.      Adele   Island,    at 


288  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

present  uninhabited,  was  the  prison  of  the  unlucky 
Celestials,  whose  fate  was  surely  hard  enough  to  draw 
a  sigh  of  pity  even  from  Australians  of  to-day,  little 
cause  as  they  have  to  like  the  race. 

For  years  after  this  wreck — indeed,  until  quite 
recent  times  —  the  Rossel  Islanders  had  a  large 
quantity  of  coin  in  their  possession,  both  gold  and 
silver,  which  they  were  willing  to  barter  with  stray 
traders  for  a  stick  or  two  of  tobacco,  at  any  time. 
There  is  a  persistent  tradition  that  the  safe  of  the 
ship,  which  the  islanders  never  succeeded  in  opening, 
is  still  hidden  somewhere  in  the  bush,  but  no  one  has 
ever  seen  it. 

The  murder  which  the  Merrie  England  had  called  to 
investigate  was  not  quite  of  the  usual  kind.  It  would 
be  impossible,  in  the  present  state  of  Rossel,  to 
inflict  punishment  on  the  natives  for  every  act  of 
violence  among  themselves,  and,  if  it  were  possible, 
it  would  be  undesirable.  But  in  this  case  a  boy  had 
been  killed  for  venturing  to  come  down  and  inform 
the  trader  of  a  double  smothering  up  in  the  moun- 
tains, when  a  chief  and  his  wife  were  slain,  on  account 
of  some  local  quarrel.  In  consequence,  the  island 
was  in  a  state  of  unrest,  threatening  to  throw  off  the 
mild  influence  of  the  two  white  men,  and  breathing 
possibilities  of  more  sinister  things,  when  the  big 
steamer  that   they  were  afraid  of  should  have  gone. 

Now,  it  is  not  good  that  a  native  should  be  killed 
because  he  has  appealed  for  protection  and  help  to  a 
white   man.      Moreover,   a  little  check   to  the   mur- 


WANTED  289 

derous  instincts  of  the  natural  Papuan  is  to  be  com- 
mended, when  possible.  So  the  village  constable 
(there  are  two  on  the  island,  Papuans  both),  with  a 
force  of  twenty  volunteers,  set  out  to  try  and  capture 
the  offenders.  The  island  is  a  big  one,  a  mass  of  steep 
hills,  deep  gullies,  and  dense  bush.  The  murderers 
had  many  friends,  and  the  time  available  for  capture 
was  very  short.  In  spite  of  all  these  disadvantages, 
the  natural  hunting  instinct  of  the  Rossel  Islander 
triumphed,  and  in  two  days  the  five  men  who  were 
"  wanted  "  had  been  brought  down  to  the  coast  under 
an  escort  by  this  time  increased  to  forty.  The 
islanders  had  no  scruples  whatever  about  joining  in 
the  hunt  or  giving  over  their  countrymen  to  justice. 
Anything  that  involved  the  chasing  of  a  man  was 
good  enough  for  them.  They  would  have  liked 
to  smother  and  eat  the  prisoners,  certainly,  instead  of 
tamely  giving  them  up  to  the  Government,  but  there 
was  consolation  for  this  loss  in  the  trade  goods  given 
to  them  as  payment  for  their  two  days'  work.  Decked 
out  in  new  red  calicoes,  with  tobacco  in  their  pouches, 
and  beads  round  their  necks,  they  went  their  way 
back  to  the  mountains,  wishing,  no  doubt,  that  a 
Government  man-hunt  might  come  their  way  every 
day,  yet  nevertheless  resolved  not  to  take  part  in  one 
as  the  quarry,  if  they  could  reasonably  avoid  it.  The 
murderers  were  ironed,  and  removed  to  the  ship,  pre- 
vious to  trial  at  Samarai.  They  will  probably,  if  con- 
victed, suffer  a  term  of  imprisonment  lasting  some 
years,  and  will  be  employed  during  that  time  on  road- 
u 


290  THE    NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

making  or  clearing  work.  Apart  from  the  useful 
lesson  conveyed  by  the  loss  of  liberty  they  will  benefit 
considerably  by  the  healthy  life  and  regular  food,  and 
will,  no  doubt,  return  to  Rossel  at  least  partially 
civilised. 

During  the  two  days'  wait  the  ship  party  amused 
themselves  visiting  some  of  the  bush  villages,  although 
the  weather — windy,  stormy,  and  wet — was  rather  a 
serious  drawback.  On  one  morning,  after  a  long  row 
across  a  wide,  beautiful  bay,  overhung  with  tall  green 
peaks,  the  Governor,  myself,  and  three  or  four  others, 
landed  upon  a  narrow  strip  of  beach,  with  a  dense, 
wet,  tangled  mass  of  tropical  forest  rising  up  almost 
out  of  the  water,  and  started  for  one  of  the  Rossel 
villages,  two  or  three  hundred  feet  above.  We  were 
only  accompanied  by  our  boat  boys,  but  it  was  not 
considered  that  we  ran  any  danger,  as  this  murderous 
little  people  are  not  fond  of  open  attack. 

The  pathway  was,  as  usual,  a  mere  streak  of  slippery 
clay  embedded  in  the  bush,  blocked  everywhere  by 
fallen  logs  and  crossing  streams,  and  infested  by  ants. 
It  wound  upwards  so  sharply  as  to  try  the  wind  of 
the  party  a  little,  at  the  pace  set  to  the  native  guides 
by  the  energetic  Governor.  On  the  top  of  the  hill  it 
opened  suddenly  out  into  a  little  space  covered  by 
houses — three  or  four,  no  more — and  overlooking  the 
sea  and  the  approaches  on  each  side,  after  a  fashion 
that  suggested  a  desire  to  avoid  surprise  visits. 

They  had  certainly  succeeded  in  avoiding  ours. 
The  village  was  all  but  deserted.     Only  a  couple  of 


LINGUA    FRANCA  291 

men  who  had  been  in  contact  with  white  people  often 
enough  to  know  that  no  harm  was  probably  meant 
them,  stood  their  ground,  and  waited  to  see  what 
could  be  obtained  in  the  way  of  tobacco  from  the 
new-comers. 

And  here  we  came  upon  the  second  of  the  incredi- 
bilities of  Rossel.  The  smothering  tales  had  been 
the  first.  Now  we  were  to  find — as  we  found 
elsewhere  on  the  coasts,  and  as  we  should  have  found 
even  in  the  hidden  villages  of  the  almost  unknown 
interior — that  the  natives  nearly  all  spoke  English  ! 

To  be  addressed  in  reasonably  good  English  of  the 
"pidgin"  variety,  by  hideous  savages  who  made 
murder  a  profession,  and  had  never  come  into  actual 
contact  with  civilisation,  is  an  experience  perplexing 
enoucjh  to  make  the  observer  wonder  if  he  is  awake. 
Yet  that  is  what  happens  on  Rossel  Island.  English 
is  the  "  lingua  franca "  of  the  place,  filling  up  the 
gaps — and  they  are  many — in  the  hideous  snapping, 
barking  dialect  that  passes  for  speech  along  the  coast, 
and  making  communication  possible  among  the  tribes 
of  the  interior,  who  vary  so  much  in  language  that 
many  of  them  cannot  understand  each  other.  How 
did  this  come  about  .''  I  fancy,  through  the  unsatis- 
factory nature  of  the  Rossel  dialects.  Any  that  we 
heard  were  scarcely  like  human  speech  in  sound,  and 
were  evidently  very  poor  and  restricted  in  expression. 
Noises  like  sneezes,  snarls,  and  the  preliminary  stages 
of  choking — impossible  to  reproduce  on  paper — 
represented  the  names  of  villages,  people,  and  things. 


292  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

Of  verbs  we  could  find  no  trace,  though  they  may 
exist.  Most  of  the  words  are  monosyllabic,  and 
nearly  all  are  spoken  from  far  back  in  the  throat.  A 
good  deal  of  information  was  given  us  by  a  young 
person  enjoying  the  name  "  Tnmagh  "  (pronounced 
in  one  syllable),  who  spoke  more  English  than  the 
others.  Tnmagh  had  been  away  in  a  recruiting  ship, 
and  knew  something  of  the  mind  of  the  white  man. 
Some  boys,  he  told  us,  had  learned  English  in  the 
same  way  as  himself,  and  when  they  returned  to 
Rossel  they  taught  it  to  the  rest.  The  Rossel  folk, 
who  are  not  deficient  in  brains,  whatever  one  may  say 
as  to  their  morals,  recognised  at  once  that  here  was  a 
means  of  communicating  with  each  other  simply, 
easily,  and  clearly  (for  there  is  no  tongue  in  the  world 
than  can  be  learned  so  rapidly  as  "  pidgin  English  "), 
and  acquired  the  new  language  from  each  other  so 
quickly  that  there  is  now  scarce  a  village  where  you 
cannot  find  one  or  two  English-speaking  natives. 

Shock  number  three  came  when  we  began  to 
examine  the  houses.  They  were  neat  little  struc- 
tures enough,  made  of  plaited  palm  and  thatch,  set 
up  on  tall  stilts  after  the  usual  Papuan  fashion,  to 
avoid  nocturnal  visits  from  alligators,  and  closed  from 
wind  and  rain  with  palm-leaf  doors.  Most  had  a 
little  front  verandah,  so  deep  as  to  form  a  sort  of 
porch.  Within,  nothing  of  interest  was  found  except 
some  plaited  baskets,  and  a  number  of  ebony  lime 
sticks  with  carved  handles,  looking  exactly  like  orna- 
mental  paper  knives.      These  lime   sticks  have   flat 


GENTLE   LIFE  293 

blades,  and  arc  used  for  mixing  and  spooning  out  the 
lime  chewed  with  betel  nut.  The  heads  of  the  sticks 
are  generally  carved  into  grotesque  semblances  of 
human  faces,  and  sometimes  into  rough  likenesses  of 
pigeons  or  parrots.  A  stick  or  two  of  tobacco  readily 
purchases  any  one  of  them. 

But  it  was  not  the  lime  sticks  so  much  as  the 
general  surroundings  of  the  houses  that  puzzled  and 
amused.  These  professional  murderers,  with  the 
tongues  of  brutes  and  the  morals  of  sharks,  are 
very  fond  of  gardening,  and  plant  pretty  red,  yellow, 
and  pink  flowers  about  their  houses  with  considerable 
efl^ect.  They  keep  pet  cats,  which  are  sleek  and  well- 
fed  looking.  "You  ki-ki  (eat)  that  fellow  pussy  .? " 
we  asked.  *'  No  !  no  ki-ki  pussy — he  good  fellow," 
was  the  astounding  answer.  Not  content  with  land- 
scape gardening,  studying  foreign  languages,  wood 
carving,  and  keeping  pets,  they  display  further 
evidences  of  a  taste  for  the  "  gentle  life "  by  going 
constantly  provided  with  fine  toilet  sponges,  which 
they  procure  themselves  from  the  reef,  carry  round 
their  waist  in  bags,  and  use  to  wash  their  taces  ! 

After  this,  one  was  prepared  for  anything,  and  it 
was  only  mildly  astonishing  to  stumble  across  a  dead 
insect  in  the  pathway  exactly  like  a  black  crayfish, 
some  eight  inches  long,  and  to  hear  that  this  grue- 
some creature — one  of  the  stick  insect  family — was 
common  in  the  trees,  and  was  boiled  and  eaten  by  the 
natives  as  food.  Like  a  crayfish,  it  turns  red  when 
cooked. 


294  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

Nor  were  we  much  amazed,  lower  down,  in  a  very 
wretched,  dirty,  ill-built  village  on  the  coast,  to 
discover  a  native  drill,  made  of  stick,  string,  and 
shell,  with  extreme  ingenuity,  and  capable  of  boring 
holes  in  stone.  The  inventor — who  must  be  a 
Stephenson  or  an  Edison  among  Rossel  Islanders — 
was  quite  ready  to  accept  a  stick  of  tobacco,  value 
three-halfpence,  for  his  really  wonderful  achieve- 
ment ;  but  its  purchaser,  in  a  fit  of  generosity,  in- 
sisted on  giving  him  six  times  what  he  asked. 

At  the  foot  of  the  hill  we  found  another  of  the 
surprises  of  Rossel — a  mint,  no  less.  This  island 
is  especially  rich  in  the  shell  from  which  the  native 
money  of  Papua  is  manufactured — a  bivalve  two  or 
three  inches  across  with  a  rim  of  rich  deep  red  inside 
the  lip,  and  a  layer  of  the  some  colour  underneath 
the  white  lining  or  the  shell  itself  Papuan  money 
consists  of  certain  small  button-shaped  objects,  bored 
through  the  middle,  cut  out  of  this  red  part  of  the 
shell,  and  commonly  worn  or  carried  in  long  strings. 
The  natives  value  it  more  than  anything  else  that 
can  be  offered  to  them,  and  many  of  the  white 
traders  use  it  in  preference  to  European  money  for 
purchasing  copra  or  pearlshell,  or  even  pearls.  Each 
disc  is  worth  about  threepence,  and  a  man  can  cut 
out,  shape,  and  finish  something  like  a  dozen  in  a 
day.  The  trader  resident  on  Rossel  has  instituted 
a  mint  on  a  small  scale,  where  he  employs  the  natives 
making  money  for  him,  when  he  has  no  other  work 
for  his  indentured  boys.     It  is  only  a  shed,  where 


NUMBER   SEVEN  295 

the  shells  are  cut  up,  shaped,  and  bored,  but  it  is 
certainly  interesting  as  another  of  Rossel's  curiosities. 
On  board  the  ship  in  the  evening  someone  asked 
the  native  policeman  what  the  numerals  in  Rossel 
dialect  were.  He  gave  them  readily  enough,  but 
hesitated  at  the  number  seven.  You  might  not 
always  say  that  number,  he  explained — sometimes  it 
brought  on  thunderstorms  if  you  did.  And  you 
must  never  say  it  at  all  when  you  went  to  Adele 
Island  to  get  cocoanuts  or  fish,  because  the  most 
frightful  results  would  undoubtedly  follow.  In  any 
case,  when  a  Rossel  Islander  went  over  to  Adele  he 
used  a  different  language  all  the  time  he  was  on  that 
island. 

Why  ^     Were  there  natives  on  Adele  who  spoke 
differently  ? 

Oh,  no,  it   was   uninhabited  ;   but   you   must   talk 
a  different  language  there — it  was  the  custom. 

This,  of  course,  is  an  interesting  instance  of  a 
language  surviving  the  people  who  once  used  it. 
There  were  no  doubt  formerly  natives  on  Adele  who 
spoke  a  tongue  different  from  those  of  Rossel,  and 
the  Rossel  fishing  parties  still  keep  up  its  use 
through  a  blind  tradition.  .  .  .  There  are  traces 
among  the  islanders,  too,  of  a  separate  language  used 
by  men  only,  and  forbidden  to  the  women  on  pain 
of  death.  .  .  .  Why  does  not  some  man  of  science 
come  up  to  the  Louisiades  and  investigate  the  many 
mysteries  of  Rossel  ?  It  would  certainly  be  found 
a  mine  of  strange  and  valuable  ethnological  discovery. 


296  THE   NEW    NEW   GUINEA 

1  do  not  expect  that  anyone  will  believe  me  when 
I  say  that  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Rossel,  and 
further  west,  both  I  and  other  members  of  the  p&rty 
saw  fish  about  two  or  three  feet  long,  which  run 
along  the  top  of  the  water  for  a  considerable  distance 
on  the  tips  of  their  tails — but  it  is  nevertheless  true. 
Why  they  do  it — unless  possibly  to  escape  from 
enemies  down  below  ;  and  more  especially  how  they 
do  it — I  could  not  undertake  to  say.  It  is  not  the 
leap  of  a  flying  fish,  for  it  does  not  clear  the  water. 
The  fish  simply  speeds  along  through  the  air,  keep- 
ing the  flukes  of  its  tail  only  under  the  surface.  It 
does  not  appear  to  turn,  which  the  flying  fish  does. 
It  is  common  about  the  Louisiades,  on  shallow  shores, 
where  seaweed  grows  thickly  just  under  water.  If 
any  zoologist  can  explain  this  fish  I  hope  he  will — 
obvious  explanation  of  the  profane  vulgar  need  not 
be  advanced,  as  the  Merrie  E^igland  is  a  temperance 
ship,  so  far  as  her  passengers  are  concerned. 

From  Rossel  we  went  on  to  Tagula,  or  Sud-Est, 
where  more  strange  experiences  were  awaiting  us. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

Sud-Est  and  its  Queen — Historic  jewels  of  Papua — Two  brave 
Mrs.  Crusoes — A  new  voyage  of  Maeldune — Unchaperoned  Sim- 
Sim — The  Island  of  Silence— Too  good  to  be  true— The  curious 
Trobriands — Catching  fish  with  kites — A  ghastly  locket — The 
gentle  art  of  poisoning — Strange  fruits — The  pearls  in  the  dust 
heap — Back  to  Port  Moresby. 

\  FTER  leaving  the  incredible  island  of  Rossel  we 
'^^  turned  back  in  the  direction  of  civilisation  again, 
and  ran  to  Sud-Est,  another  of  the  Louisiades,  distant 
a  few  hours'  steaming.  A  long,  dark  blue  moun- 
tainous coast  stretched  out  before  us  as  the  Meriie 
England  picked  her  way  cautiously  among  the  many 
coral  reefs  surrounding  the  shore.  Sud-Est  is  more 
than  forty  miles  in  length,  and  as  unlike  to  the 
gloomy,  evil  island  of  Rossel  as  day  to  night.  Grassy, 
rolling  downs  slope  above  the  sea  as  one  approaches  ; 
a  coral  jetty  runs  out  into  the  bay  ;  there  are  houses 
and  sheds  on  the  hill  above.  A  cheerful,  homelike 
place,  this  Sud-Est,  and  it  is  what  it  appears  to  be. 

The  island  is  nominally,  no  doubt,  owned  and 
governed  by  the  Commonwealth,  but  morally  it  is 
the  property  of  the  Queen  of  Sud-Est,  and  of  no  one 
else.  Mrs.  Mahony,  the  adventurous  Australian 
who  bears  this  title,  has  been  on  the  island,  with  an 
occasional   holiday,  for  twenty  years.     She  came  up 

297 


298  THE   NEW    NEW   GUINEA 

from  Queensland  with  the  first  of  the  Papuan  gold- 
rushes,  when  there  was  only  one  other  white  woman — 
a  missionary's  wife — in  the  whole  of  the  Possession. 
She  lived  through  the  exciting  and  perilous  days  of 
those  early  times,  always  respected  and  deferred  to 
by  the  roughest  of  the  miners,  from  her  innate  force 
of  character,  and  when  the  fields  of  Sud-Est  became 
almost  exhausted,  and  the  whites  went  away,  she  still 
remained  with  her  husband  and  children,  and  ad- 
ministered justice  and  order  to  the  natives  with  a 
strong  hand.  In  consequence  the  island  presents  a 
picture  of  industry,  peace,  and  safety  that  is  little 
short  of  amazing,  considering  the  fact  that  it  lies  far 
out  of  the  range  of  ordinary  Government  influence, 
and  has  never  been  touched  by  missionary  effort. 
The  large  native  population  is,  almost  to  a  man, 
gold-mining.  Where  the  white  man  has  given  up, 
the  Papuan  still  finds  enough  to  make  gold-washing 
a  profitable  profession.  The  popular  idea  that  the 
*'  nigger  "  is  necessarily  a  lazy  creature  unless  forced 
to  work  by  whites  finds  little  justification  on  Sud-Est. 
This  island,  indeed,  furnished  some  of  the  most  in- 
structive sidelights  on  Papuan  character  that  I  met 
with  in  all  my  journeyings  about  the  Possession, 

If  the  Papuan  has  sufficient  motive  he  will  work, 
and  not  only  for  short  periods,  but  steadily  and  con- 
tinuously for  years. 

When  he  makes  a  little  money  he  spends  it  very 
wisely,  all  things  considered.  Contact  with  white 
people,  knowledge  of  the  English  tongue,  and  of  the 


SUD-EST  299 

habit  of  steady  work,  with  its  attendant  advantages 
of  constant  food  supply  and  useful  exercise,  all  tend 
to  make  the  Papuan  healthy,  decent,  and  peaceful. 

These  are  the  lessons  of  Sud-Est,  where,  owing  to 
peculiar  circumstances,  the  effects  of  generations  of 
training  have  been  compressed  into  a  single  quarter 
of  a  century. 

As  to  proofs,  they  are  plentiful.  The  natives  of 
Sud-Est  live,  and  have  lived  since  the  departure  of  the 
miners,  almost  altogether  by  gold-washing.  They 
are  industrious,  and  work  hard.  Almost  every  man 
has  his  own  scales,  and  weighs  out  his  gold  to  the 
minuest  grain,  carefully  and  accurately,  before  he 
takes  it  to  the  store  to  purchase  food  or  tobacco  or 
tools.  There  are  about  a  thousand  natives  on  the 
island  altogether.  During  the  days  of  the  gold  rush 
there  were  over  six  hundred  white  miners,  and  Sud-Est 
was  not  by  a  long  way  so  healthy  as  it  is  to-day. 
There  is  still  malaria,  but  it  is  not  of  the  worst  kind, 
and  both  whites  and  natives  now  seem  to  enjoy  good 
health. 

Crime  is  almost  unknown  on  Sud-Est,  though  there 
is  no  settled  system  of  government  other  than  a  very 
rare  visit  from  a  magistrate.  The  lives  of  the  half- 
dozen  white  residents  are  as  safe  as  they  would  be  in 
Sydney.  The  Sud-Est  boys  are  in  considerable  request 
as  labourers  when  they  can  be  induced  to  engage,  and 
many  of  them  have  a  fair  amount  of  property  in 
goods  and  native  jewellery,  such  as  armshells  and 
shell  money. 


300  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

English  is  spoken  all  over  Sud-Est.  The  early- 
miners  were  probably  the  first  to  introduce  the 
British  tongue,  which  was  so  obviously  superior  to 
the  cumbrous  local  language  that  it  immediately  took 
root  and  flourished  ;  but  the  most  important  influence 
in  that  direction  has  undoubtedly  been  the  rule  of  the 
"Queen."  Mrs.  Mahony's  system  of  teaching  English 
to  the  natives  has  been  marked  from  the  first  by  the 
double  merits  of  simplicity  and  efi^ectiveness.  Her 
store  and  enclosure  were,  and  are,  the  general  rendez- 
vous of  all  the  natives,  for  business,  shopping,  or 
even  amusement,  as  when  the  "  Queen  "  gives  a  royal 
feast  to  three  or  four  hundred  of  her  subjects,  simply 
to  promote  harmony  and  goodwill.  It  is  easy  to 
understand  that  no  Sud-Estian  would  like  to  lose  the 
right  of  entry  to  this  enchanted  ground,  and  therein 
lies  the  strength  of  Mrs.  Mahony's  educational 
method.  For  whenever  a  single  word  of  Sud-Est 
is  spoken  within  the  limits  of  her  enclosure,  no 
matter  why,  or  by  whom,  the  "Queen"  issues  forth 
in  all  the  majesty  of  her  six  feet  of  height,  and 
promptly  runs  the  offender  out.  If  you  cannot  or 
will  not  talk  English  inside  the  royal  grounds  you 
have  to  hold  your  tongue  on  Sud-Est.  In  conse- 
quence, the  island  language  is  rather  less  spoken 
than  the  foreign  tongue  to-day,  and  the  natives  are 
practically  all  bilingual. 

There  is  not  much  loss  in  this,  except  to  philolo- 
gists searching  for  something  unique  in  the  way  of 
languages.      The  tongue  of   Sud-Est    is  to  the  full 


MRS.    MAHONY  301 

as  awkward,  inexpressive,  and  inharmonious  as  that  of 
Rossel,  though  in  a  different  way.  Where  the 
Rossel  man  speaks  in  monosyllabic  grunts  and  gasps, 
the  Sud-Estian  talks  in  words  of  amazing  length 
linked  together  by  endless  repetitions.  The  name 
of  a  village  near  the  coast  was  given  to  us  by  the 
English-speaking  village  constable  as  "  Vanamanaman- 
dawa."  "  Finger  "  was  "  namandagugyie  "  ;  "  head," 
"mbalunda";  and  the  simple  sentence  "give  me  a 
lock  of  your  hair,"  translated  by  the  constable,  ex- 
panded itself  into  "  Waw  ma  mwunu  umbaludawulu- 
wuluye" — the  last  and  most  amazing  word  represent- 
ing "  hair."  As  a  member  of  our  party  remarked, 
it  would  save  time  to  take  it  without  asking. 

Mrs.  Mahony  was  absent  at  the  time  of  our  call, 
much  to  the  regret  of  the  party  ;  but  we  were  hospit- 
ably entertained  in  her  house,  and  shown  many  local 
curios.  Shell  money  is  among  the  most  interesting 
of  these.  Mrs.  Mahony  is  one  of  the  largest  pur- 
chasers of  the  Rossel  shells  from  which  the  money 
is  made,  as  already  described.  Native  armlets 
also,  carved  out  of  a  single  large  white  shell,  thick 
and  firm  as  a  slab  of  marble,  bring  an  amazing 
price  among  the  natives,  and  are  profitable  to  trade 
in.  A  native  will  often  engage  in  plantation  or 
carrier  work  on  the  mainland  for  two  years,  in  order 
to  have  the  money  to  purchase  a  pair  of  these  orna- 
ments, which  are  kept  by  almost  all  traders,  though 
they  are  of  purely  native  manufacture.  A  fairly 
good   pair   will  cost  three   or  four   pounds,   and   the 


302  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

prices  range  upward  from  this  comparatively  modest 
sum,  to  the  twenty  and  thirty  pounds  sometimes 
given  by  a  sort  of  native  syndicate,  for  a  pair  of 
really  famous  bracelets,  known  to  half  the  Posses- 
sion, and  named,  as  all  the  celebrated  shell  armlets 
are.  The  love  of  these  ornaments  amounts  to  a 
passion  with  the  Papuan,  and  can  be  compared  to 
nothing  but  the  American  woman's  fancy  for  big  and 
historical  diamonds.  As  our  own  famous  gems  are 
named  "  The  Koh-i-Noor,"  "The  Sancy,"  "  The  Pitt," 
"  The  Cullinan,"  so  the  Papuan  shell  armlets  of  un- 
usual size  and  thickness  have  their  native  names, 
known  to  everyone,  and  bringing  celebrity  and 
distinction  to  the  possessor  of  the  jewel  wherever  he 
goes  throughout  the  whole  extent  of  Papua. 

Some  of  these  facts  were  given  me  later  on  by  a 
well-known  trader  in  another  part  of  the  Possession, 
but  as  Sud-Est  is  one  of  the  chief  markets  of  native 
jewellery,  I  have  mentioned  them  here. 

Misima,  or  St.  Aignan,  was  the  next  call.  We  had, 
again,  only  a  few  hours  to  run,  as  the  islands  of  the 
Louisiade  group  are  fairly  close  together.  Starting  at 
daybreak,  we  found  ourselves  by  breakfast  time 
anchored  surprisingly  close  to  a  brilliant  coral  shore, 
backed  with  stately,  plumy  cocoanut  palms,  and 
almost  covered  with  close  serried  rows  of  the  most 
wonderful  canoes  that  I  have  yet  seen,  even  in  this 
country  of  curious  boat-building.  They  were  fully 
forty  feet  long,  and  some  were  deep  enough  to  con- 
ceal   a    man    standing    upright    within.     Most   were 


STRANGE   VESSELS  303 

partly  decked  with  platforms  of  woven  cane,  and  all 
were  built  up  in  several  sections,  commencing  with  a 
deep  keel  cut  out  of  one  huge  tree  trunk,  and  spread- 
ing out  above  to  a  considerable  width.  They  fronted 
the  burning  sea  proudly,  with  their  high  carved 
prows,  like  the  beaked  war-vessels  of  the  ancient 
Norsemen  ;  their  gunwales  were  gay  with  chains  and 
inlayings  of  dazzling  shells  ;  and  the  paintings  in 
red  and  white  and  black,  of  crocodiles,  parrots,  pigs, 
fish,  and  men,  that  adorned  the  bows  and  stern,  and 
ran  along  the  sides  in  bands,  were  a  wonder  to  see. 

We  tried  to  purchase  some  of  the  detachable 
ornaments,  made  of  carved  and  painted  wood,  that 
were  stuck  in  various  prominent  parts  of  the  canoes  ; 
but  their  owners,  a  rather  ugly  and  stupid-looking 
set  of  natives,  refused  to  trade  in  anything  that 
we  could  offer.  So  the  party  divided  and  went 
inland,  some  to  shoot  parrots  and  pigeons,  some 
(and  those  not  among  the  wise  ones)  to  follow  the 
Lieutenant-Governor  on  one  of  his  visits  of  in- 
spection and  investigation.  As  His  Excellency  usually 
set  a  pace  of  anything  from  four  and  a  half  to  five 
and  a  half  miles  an  hour  (a  gait  rather  trying  in  hot, 
wet  jungle,  and  over  rough  hill  tracks,  in  a  latitude 
only  six  degrees  south  of  the  line),  his  division  was 
not  popular  on  the  line  of  march,  and  often  enough 
consisted  of  himself  and  one  agitated  native  servant, 
trotting  in  front,  and  extremely  anxious  to  uphold 
the  honour  of  his  service  and  his  race,  without  in 
consequence    missing    the     track    or    getting    badly 


304  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

"winded."  In  the  second  division,  as  a  rule, 
followed  the  rest  of  the  Merrie  England  party,  taking 
life  easily,  and  wondering  audibly  what  our  gigantic 
chief  was  made  of. 

In  this  instance,  two  separate  sections  got  left,  lost, 
and  finally  united.  Parrot-shooting  —  and  such 
parrots  !  green,  yellow,  red,  pink,  blue,  purple,  and 
black,  all  combined  on  the  one  bird — passed  a 
pleasant  hour  or  two  ;  exploring  trips  up  abandoned 
gold  workings  filled  in  the  balance  of  the  morning. 
St.  Aignan,  like  Sud-Est,  has  been  worked  out,  and 
only  provides  the  slenderest  living  for  the  seven  or 
eight  white  men  who  still  cling  to  the  island. 

There  were  three  white  women  not  long  ago,  but 
there  is  only  one  now.  Thereupon  depends  a  story — 
one  of  the  strange,  true,  unbelievable  stories  of  Papua, 
which  he  who  likes  may  credit. 

A  white  woman  lived  here  on  Misima,  far  away 
from  the  remotest  echoes  of  civilisation,  for  many 
years,  with  her  husband,  who  was  one  of  the  early 
miners.  He  died,  and  she  kept  on  his  claim,  though 
she  was  now  very  old,  and  worked  it  herself.  After 
some  years  of  this  strange,  lonely  life,  the  old  lady 
became  ill,  and  had  to  go  down  to  Queensland  to  see 
a  doctor.  While  there,  regaining  her  health,  she 
made  up  her  mind  to  endure  her  solitary  life  no 
longer,  but  to  bring  back  with  her  to  Misima  a  com- 
panion who  would  share  her  labours  and  profits,  and 
lighten  the  dullness  of  existence  on  that  uttermost 
isle.     She  chose,  not  a  second  husband,  not  a  young 


INDEPENDENCE  305 

woman,  but  another  white-haired  old  lady  of  her  own 
age,  one  who  had  been  left  ill  off,  and  feared  a  life  of 
dependence.  In  the  quiet  home  lands,  an  old  lady 
who  has  lived  her  life  and  become  conservative  and 
stiff  in  mind  and  body  looks  for  an  almshouse  or 
"institution"  to  end  her  days  in,  if  she  is  ill  provided 
with  means  of  support,  or  at  most  seeks  a  position  as 
chaperon  or  caretaker  or  companion.  They  do  things 
differently  in  Queensland.  The  ancient  dame 
selected  by  the  heroine  of  Sud-Est  answered  gallantly 
to  the  call,  and  the  two  old  women  actually  set  out 
for  the  wilds  of  Papua  together,  travelling  by  steamer 
to  Samarai,  and  thence,  some  days  in  a  risky  little 
cutter,  to  Misima.  Arrived  there,  they  went  on 
working  the  first  old  woman's  claim,  and  lived 
decently  on  what  they  made,  asking  help  from  no 
one,  self-respecting,  industrious,  and  independent. 

I  should  have  liked  well  to  meet  these  two  plucky 
old  Australians,  and  had  been  looking  forward  to  my 
visit  to  Misima  for  that  reason.  But  it  was  not  to 
be.  Only  a  week  or  two  before  the  two  good 
comrades  had  died,  mostly  of  old  age  and  infirmity, 
it  was  thought,  and  within  a  few  hours  of  each  other. 
They  rest  where  they  laboured,  on  Misima,  far  away 
in  the  Ultima  Thule  of  outermost  Papua,  brave 
women  of  a  brave  race,  who  owed  naught  to  anyone, 
in  life  or  death. 

We  were  bound  for  the  Trobriands  now,  calling 
here  and  there  on  the  way.  The  track  lay  among 
many  islands,  all  beautiful,  and  most  of  them  interest- 

X 


3o6  THE    NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

ing.  Time  did  not  permit  the  yacht  to  stop,  as  a 
rule,  but  there  were  strange  stories  to  be  heard  about 
some  of  these  out-of-the-way  little  spots. 

The  Bosanquet  group — a  mere  handful  of  small 
islets  and  sand-cays — was  passed  one  afternoon  near 
sundown.  Our  captain  ran  the  ship  close  by  Sim- 
Sim,  the  chief  island  of  the  group,  in  order  to  let  us 
have  a  good  look  at  it.  Sim-Sim  is  worth  looking  at, 
for  it  has  worked  out  for  itself  what  is  surely  the 
most  extraordinary  social  system  ever  heard  of,  even 
in  Papua  the  Impossible. 

It  consists  of  twin  islands,  not  more  than  a  few 
acres  in  extent,  separated  from  each  other  by  a  wide 
strait  of  deep  water.  In  the  centre  of  the  larger 
island  rises  an  extinct  volcanic  crater,  with  great  forest 
trees,  and  slopes  of  green  grass  appearing  inside  the 
cup.  This  is  much  the  prettier  island  of  the  two  ; 
its  palms  are  taller  and  thicker,  its  beach  wider,  its 
grassy  slopes  richer  than  those  of  the  sister  islet, 
which  is,  nevertheless,  a  picturesque  place  enough. 

.  .  .  Did  the  reader,  in  the  days  when  Plancus  was 
consul,  and  summer  nights  were  full  of  the  scent 
of  roses,  and  the  rustle  of  tulle  and  silken  skirts, 
and  the  swinging  "  one — two — three  "  of  "  White 
Heather,"  or  "  Estudiantina  " — when  rustic  seats  in 
moonlit  gardens  beckoned  insistently,  and  curtained 
bow-windows  were  magnetically  attractive,  and  the 
place  to  see  the  race  of  the  day  somehow  always 
seemed  to  be  the  back  of  the  grand  stand — did  he  or 
she,  in  those  pleasant,  miserable  days,  ever  wish  hope- 


NO    CHAPERONS  307 

lessly — as  one  wishes  for  a  million  of  money,  or  for 
heaven — for  an  island  somewhere  in  the  South  Seas 
upon  which  the  heavy  foot  of  the  chaperon  should 
never  have  been  set,  and  over  whose  flowery  shores 
the  baleful  light  of  her  incscapeable  spectacles  never 
should  have  shone  ?  Well,  here  it  is,  here  in  the 
Pacific  Ocean,  off  the  coast  of  Papua,  in  the  Bosan- 
quet  group,  and  its  name  is  Sim-Sim. 

They  understand  the  art  of  gathering  the  roses 
while  they  may  in  Sim-Sim.  On  the  pretty  island  the 
big,  flowery,  palmy  island,  with  the  extinct  crater-cup 
in  its  centre,  lives  the  youth  of  Sim-Sim.  On  the 
other,  the  decent,  rather  prosaic,  rather  inferior  island, 
live  the  old  people.  They  are  well  treated,  but  kept 
in  their  place,  and  not  allowed  to  spoil  sport.  The 
young  people  do  not  want  them,  have  no  use  for 
them,  and  let  them  see  it.  They,  the  young  ones, 
can  amuse  each  other  ;  the  time  will  come  soon  enough 
when  they  will  have  to  cross  the  strait  and  leave  the 
volcano  island,  with  its  green  romantic  dells  and  long 
white  beaches,  for  the  middle-aged  place  that  is  not 
half  so  pretty — but  in  the  meantime  they  pluck  the 
fruit  of  the  flying  hour,  and  find  the  world  is  good. 

The  captain  tells  us  that  if  you  land  on  Sim-Sim 
you  are  instantly  surrounded  by  a  cloud  of  sea-birds 
and  cockatoos,  which  light  on  your  hands  and  head, 
scream  in  your  face,  and  generally  make  themselves 
very  much  at  home  with  the  visitor.  These  are  the 
island  pets  and  watch-dogs.  The  natives  tame  them, 
partly   for   amusement,  partly   to    provide   an    incor- 


3o8  THE    NEW    NEW   GUINEA 

ruptible  guard  for  the  islands  at  night.  Cockatoos 
sleep  with  one  ear  and  one  eye  open,  and  have  the 
useful  habit  of  making  night  hideous  with  blood- 
curdling yells  if  strangers  are  heard  approaching. 

We  were  all  sorry  we  could  not  call  at  Sim-Sim, 
but  you  have  to  be  careful  about  where  you  find 
yourself  when  dark  comes  down  off  these  half- 
surveyed  Papuan  coasts.  So  we  kept  on  our  way, 
and  got  out  of  the  tangle  of  reefs  and  islets  and 
cays  while  there  was  still  light  enough  to  tell  a  coral 
"  horse-head  "  from  a  floating  mass  of  seaweed. 

It  was  really  the  Voyage  of  Maeldune,  or  some- 
thing very  much  like  it.  "  We  came  to  the  Island 
of  Silence  "  next  day — a  far-out  bit  of  the  Bonvouloir 
group,  where  nobody  lives,  or  ever  has  lived.  There 
were  three  islands  fairly  near  to  one  another,  real 
"  desert  islands,"  without  even  a  name  to  a  single  one 
of  them.  The  first  was  a  high  island,  standing  up 
some  hundreds  of  feet  out  of  the  calm  blue  sea.  It 
was  sheer  cliff  all  round — snowy-white  coral  cliff, 
garlanded  with  long  green  vines  dropping  down  to 
the  water's  edge.  On  the  top  there  were  trees  and 
bushes,  and  a  tangle  of  lianas  and  trailers  of  many 
kinds.  One  might  have  got  up,  with  the  help  of  the 
creepers  and  the  projecting  spurs  of  coral,  but  it 
would  have  been  a  risky  business  at  best,  and  all  the 
Merrie  England's  passengers  declared  (after  the 
captain  had  thrown  certain  sailorly  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  a  call)  that  they  did  not  want  to  land  there — 
which  was  untrue. 


UNNAMED    ISLANDS  309 

The  two  other  unnamed  islands  now  came  in  sight, 
two  vivid  bouquets  of  foliage  set  in  the  midst  of  a 
grass-green  lagoon,  and  fenced  round  from  the  blue 
deep  sea  beyond,  by  the  ruffle  of  the  foamy  coral-reef. 
Here  we  absolutely  demanded  that  the  Merrie 
England  should  be  stopped  and  a  boat  sent  ashore. 
One  of  the  guests  from  Australia  wanted  a  desert 
island,  and  he  had  fallen  in  love  with  the  Isles  of 
Silence  at  first  sight. 

So  we  rowed  through  the  opening  in  the  reef, 
across  the  lagoon  (which  was  pale  pea-green  in  colour, 
with  heliotrope  reflections),  over  two  or  three  many- 
coloured  water  gardens  of  growing  coral,  with  striped 
and  painted  fish  darting  through,  and  up  to  a  beach 
the  colour  and  consistence  of  fine  white  table-salt. 
Here  we  landed,  and  instantly  began  to  overrun  the 
place.  We  were  aggrieved — though  I  do  not  know 
why — to  find  one  or  two  ruined  palm-leaf  huts  on  the 
shore,  and  we  were  somewhat  consoled  when  some- 
body told  us  that  the  huts  were  doubtless  mere 
shelters  for  natives  who  might  camp  on  the  island 
during  the  long  canoe  voyage  from  the  Bonvouloirs 
to  the  Trobriands. 

The  island  proved  to  be  much  bigger  than  it  looked 
from  the  sea.  Two  lots  of  the  visitors  got  lost  in  its 
woods  and  did  not  disentangle  themselves  for  an 
hour  or  more.  There  were  open  spaces  of  green 
grass  and  pink  flowers  shut  in  by  tall  forest  trees  ; 
there  were  dense  dark  recesses  with  scarce  a  ray  of 
light,  and  swampy  ferny  places  where  the  tracks  of 


3IO  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

wild  pigs  were  plain,  and  sparse-growing  brakes 
where  the  sun  shone  through,  and  the  white  columns 
of  the  coco-palms  shot  freely  skyward,  and  the  sparkle 
of  the  cool,  salt,  tumbling  sea  flickered  low  among 
the  leaves,  a  long  way  away.  There  were  sites  that 
simply  cried  out  for  a  house,  and  creeks  and  coves 
that  looked  painfully  empty  without  a  boat.  There 
was  a  beach  where  you  could  take  a  long  jump  off  the 
sand  into  eight  feet  of  liquid  beryl.     There  was  .  .  . 

**  I  shall  have  this  place,"  said  the  visitor  from 
Australia,  determinedly.  "  It's  got  tons  and  tons  of 
copra  already,  and  I'll  plant  more.  I'll  keep  a  cutter 
to  run  to  Samarai  in  a  couple  of  days  when  I  want. 
I'll  bring  my  brother  out,  and  we'll  build  a  house  and 
be  kings  of  the  place.  One  couldn't  wish  it  better  if 
it  had  been  made  to  order — it's  almost  too  good." 

Alas,  it  was  quite  too  good  !  for  when  we  got  back 
to  Samarai,  we  found  that  among  the  latest  applica- 
tions for  land  received  by  the  Government  was  one 
from  a  schooner  captain  applying  for  the  two  little 
islands  in  the  lagoon.  And  so  the  Australian's  vision 
faded. 

The  Trobriands  lay  before  us  after  this — one  big 
and  several  little  islands  about  a  couple  of  hundred 
miles  distant  from  Samarai.  The  Trobriands  are 
always  supposed  to  be  one  of  the  most  interesting 
places  in  Papua  ;  they  are  certainly  among  the  most 
civilised.  If  I  did  not  find  them  as  fascinating  as 
the  wild  and  wicked  West,  that  was  probably  because 
they  reminded  me  too  much  of  the  South  Sea  island 


TOTEMS  311 

life  with  which  I  was  so  familiar,  and  therefore  lacked 
the  charm  of  novelty. 

The  people  of  the  Trobrlands  are  of  the  Poly- 
nesian type  rather  than  the  Papuan.  Their  hair  is 
less  woolly  than  that  of  the  mainland  tribes  ;  they  are 
ruled  by  chiefs  who  exercise  authority  over  large 
districts,  and  they  are  not,  and  never  have  been,  canni- 
bal. In  Papua  proper,  the  "  chief"  idea  is  almost 
non-existent,  unimportant  village  headmen  being  the 
nearest  approach  to  it  that  one  is  likely  to  meet.  But 
there  is  a  real  aristocracy  in  the  Trobriands  which 
counts  generations  of  descent,  and  is  physically  better 
developed  than  the  commonalty. 

The  Trobriand  native  is  fairly  good-looking,  and 
much  given  to  ornamenting  himself  with  pearl  and 
other  shells,  dog's  teeth,  shell  beads,  and  money,  and 
chains  of  coloured  seeds.  The  men  are  almost  alto- 
gether unclothed  ;  the  women  wear  the  grass  petti- 
coat. Trobriand  houses  are  beautifully  and  elaborately 
built,  set  on  high  piles,  with  ornamented  roofs  and 
gables,  and  they  often  contain  curios  worth  getting, 
for  the  Trobriander  is  something  of  an  artist,  and 
carves  human  and  animal  figures  in  wood  with 
considerable  skill. 

The  totem  idea  is  strong  in  these  islands.  Each 
tribe  has  its  guardian  beast,  fish,  or  bird,  which  is 
regarded  as  sacred,  and  never  eaten  by  any  member  of 
the  clan.  Pigeons,  parrots,  and  fish-hawks  are  among 
the  best  known  of  the  totems.  One  notices  paintings 
of  birds  and  fish  on  the  outside  of  the  houses,  which 


312  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

have    doubtless    some    connection   with    the    ruling 
totems. 

A  long  walk  through  Kitava,  the  biggest  island, 
was  practically  all  I  saw  of  this  interesting  group. 
The  distance  was  under  eleven  miles,  but,  with  halts 
and  delays  of  one  kind  and  another,  our  party  took 
nearly  all  day  to  do  it. 

It  began  with  a  scramble  up  a  nightmare  staircase 
some  300  feet  high,  partly  natural  and  partly 
artificial,  composed  of  the  coral  foundation  of  the 
island  in  its  rise  from  the  sea.  Walking  on  coral  of 
any  kind  is  very  like  walking  on  a  pavement  of 
petrified  Turkey  sponges,  every  point  as  hard  or 
sharp  as  a  steel  pen.  In  this  instance,  the  difficulty 
was  added  to  by  the  piled-up  blocks  of  the  "  stair- 
case," which  obliged  one  to  lift  one's  feet  waist-high 
at  every  step,  after  the  manner  of  tourists  climbing 
the  pyramids  of  Cheops. 

Arrived  at  the  top,  there  were  the  usual  sloping 
muddy  tracks,  leading  from  village  to  village  ;  yam 
gardens,  immense  in  extent  and  beautifully  kept  and 
fenced  ;  natives  here  and  there,  not  at  all  scared 
(since  white  people  have  often  visited  the  Trobriands), 
but  very  eager  to  do  a  good  bit  of  bargaining  if  it 
came  to  curio  buying ;  the  quaint,  elegantly  built 
little  towns  ;  the  staring,  crowding  women,  half-timid, 
half-curious  ;  the  rattle  of  small  naked  boys,  deter- 
mined to  follow  our  party  from  end  to  end  of  the 
island,  if  necessary — all  the  familiar  scenes  of  island 
life  as  I  had  known  it  in  the  South  Sea  world. 


NOVELTIES  313 

There  were  novelties,  however.  The  fishing  kites 
that  they  eagerly  offered  for  sale  were  not  like  any- 
thing in  "  M(f  islands"  ;  nor  does  one,  in  the  South 
Seas,  see  a  disconsolate  parent  going  about  with  the 
jawbone  of  his  deceased  child  hung  like  a  locket 
round  his  neck — a  common  practice  in  Kitava.  Nor 
yet,  in  all  the  South  Sea  world,  shall  you  have 
enormous  red-back  spiders,  as  big  as  small  birds  and 
as  poisonous  as  snakes,  offered  you — alive — as  valu- 
able and  desirable  curiosities. 

The  kites  were  really  wonderful.  They  were  made 
of  dried  banana  leaves  stretched  on  twigs,  and 
attached  to  neat  coils  of  fine  native-made  twine.  At 
the  other  end  of  the  twine  was  an  object  somewhat 
resembling  a  tennis  racquet,  strung  across  with  a  mass 
of  yellow,  strong,  silky  net,  which  is  obtained  by 
twirling  the  frame  round  and  round  in  one  of  the 
great  bush-spider's  webs.  This  frame  is  left  to  trail 
loose  in  the  water,  while  the  kite  is  flown  above  the 
sea.  Small  fish  come  after  it  and  strike  their  teeth 
into  the  web,  which  entangles  them  and  holds  them 
long  enough  for  the  watching  Trobriander  to  haul  in 
his  line  and  secure  the  booty  before  it  gets  away.  A 
long  thick  tassel  of  twisted  spiders'  webs  is  some- 
times trailed  in  the  water  instead  of  the  frame,  with 
the  same  result. 

There  are  native  fruits  in  the  Trobriands  unlike 
those  that  one  sees  elsewhere.  One  that  we 
sampled  during  the  day  was  like  a  very  large  apple, 
firm  and  cool,  with   a  taste  suggestive  of  lemons  and 


314  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

fresh  butter.  Another — also  somewhat  like  an  apple 
— was  white-fleshed  and  juicy,  but  of  a  peculiar  and 
deadly  sweetness  that  cloyed  the  palate  hopelessly 
after  a  couple  of  mouthfuls.  Short  of  saccharine 
itself,  one  could  scarcely  find  a  parallel  for  the  amaz- 
ing sweetness  of  this  island  fruit. 

We  had  tea  at  the  Resident  Magistrate's  bungalow, 
and  heard  his  opinion  of  the  Trobriands  and  their 
people  generally.  The  population  is  diminishing 
here,  though  on  the  mainland  things  are  going  the 
other  way.  There  is  much  disease  among  the  people, 
and  they  are  hard  to  treat.  Missionary  work  has 
been  carried  on  in  the  islands  for  some  years,  and 
is  meeting  with  fair  success. 

The  Trobriand  people,  though  not  cannibals,  are 
rather  of  a  murderous  tendency  among  themselves, 
and  much  too  fond  of  avenging  insults  or  injuries  by 
poison.  Their  clever  and  ingenious  turn  of  mind 
finds  much  enjoyment  in  the  study  of  dangerous 
plants  and  their  effects.  From  the  sea  also  they 
obtain  certain  very  dangerous  poisons.  One,  taken 
from  the  gall-bladder  of  a  fish,  is  so  deadly, 
that  a  banana  pierced  with  a  thorn  which  has  been 
dipped  in  the  poison  will  kill  the  man  who  eats  it 
within  a  very  few  hours.  They  can  also  poison 
cocoa-nuts  without  opening  them  visibly,  so  that  the 
unsuspecting  enemy  may  drink  and  die.  ...  If  one 
lived  in  the  Trobriand  group  one  would  certainly 
wish  to  be  on  good  terms  with  its  inhabitants. 

There  was  no  time  to  see  any  of  the  pearling.    The 


LOST   PEARLS  315 

Merrie  England  had  made  an  extended  trip,  and  the 
officials  travelling  on  her  were  anxious  to  get  back  to 
Port  Moresby.  In  any  case,  it  is  not  very  easy  to  see 
the  pearl  fishing.  The  three  or  four  whites  who  have 
each  taken  out  a  pearler's  licence  (^50  per  annum) 
are  scattered  here,  there,  and  everywhere  in  their 
boats,  buying  pearls  from  the  natives  ;  and  if  you  ask 
them  what  they  are  getting  or  making — why,  for  the 
most  part,  you  7nay  ask. 

All  the  same,  truth  leaks  out  ;  and  most  people  in 
the  Territory  know  that  very  good  pearls  go  down 
now  and  then  from  the  Trobriands  to  the  dealers  of 
Thursday  Island.  A  good  many  are  brought  in 
independently  by  the  natives,  who  use  the  pearl-oyster 
as  food,  and  are  keen  nowadays  to  appreciate  the 
value  of  the  little  round  things  that,  for  some  odd 
reason,  the  white  men  want  very  badly,  and  will  buy 
for  tins  and  tins  of  meat,  and  pounds  and  pounds  of 
tobacco — if  you  are  wise,  and  stick  out  for  your 
price. 

Let  Bond  Street  weep  when  it  hears  that  for  un- 
counted generations — until  a  very  few  years  ago,  in 
fact — the  Trobriand  Islander  used  to  eat  the  oysters 
and  spit  out  the  pearls  on  the  ground  under  the 
house,  in  the  rubbish-heap,  anywhere.  There  are 
certain  "kitchen  middens"  of  old  standing  in  these 
islands  that  must  be  richer  in  pearls  than  any  twenty 
jewellers'  shops — useless  pearls,  alas  !  for  the  gem 
does  not  stand  ill-usage  and  exposure  to  weather 
and  decay,  especially  in  a  hot  and  rainy  climate. 


3i6  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

And  now,  with  bowsprit  pointed  south  and  west 
again,  we  made  steam  for  the  towns,  and  the  planta- 
tions, and  the  waking-up,  developing,  new  New  Guinea 
once  more.  We  had  done  with  the  wilds ;  the 
wandering  voyage  was  over. 

Yet  it  is  true  that  the  half  has  not  been  told. 


APPENDIX 
HOW   TO   REACH   PAPUA 

TNTENDING  travellers  or  settlers  may  be  glad  of 
a  little  information  as  to  the  means  of  reaching 
Papua,  and  the  expenses  of  the  journey. 

Contrary  to  received  opinion,  Papua  is  not  very 
"  out-of-the-way."  One  can  do  nearly  the  whole  dis- 
tance in  the  best  and  biggest  of  the  "  P.  and  O  "  liners, 
embarking  at  Tilbury,  and  leaving  the  boat  six  weeks 
later  in  Sydney.  From  this  point,  the  regular  vessels 
of  the  Australian  United  Steam  Navigation  Company, 
sailing  weekly,  take  the  traveller  up  the  Queensland 
coast  to  Cooktown  in  ten  days — a  beautiful  and  in- 
teresting voyage,  with  many  ports  of  call.  At 
Cooktown  the  Burns  Philp  steamers  meet  the 
A. U.S.N,  boat,  and,  crossing  Torres  Straits,  reach 
Port  Moresby  in  two  days. 

An  alternative  route  from  Sydney  is  that  via  the 
Solomon  Islands,  in  a  Burns  Philp  through  steamer, 
going  to  Samarai  and  Port  Moresby  without  change. 
This  takes  three  weeks,  and  allows  the  traveller  to 
see  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  beautiful  groups 
of  islands  in  the  world,  quite  at  leisure,  as  a  number 
of  calls  are  made. 

Occasional  boats  of  Dutch  and  German  lines  sail  to 
Port  Moresby  or  Samarai  from  Sydney,  usually  calling 
at  Brisbane.     They  cannot  be  counted   on,  however, 

3'7 


3i8  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

as  the  service  is  irregular,  and  depends  on  the  amount 
of  cargo  obtainable. 

The  expenses  of  the  journey  vary,  according  to  the 
line  selected.  By  "P.  and  O."  it  costs  £4.1  to  ^82 
as  far  as  Sydney  ;  the  ticket  to  Port  Moresby  adds  on 
another  £12. 

Travellers  who  do  not  mind  a  good  deal  of 
**  roughing  it "  and  some  mixed  company  can  get  to 
Sydney  for  about  £10  by  the  large  one-class  White 
Star  boats  that  sail  from  Southampton.  Messrs.  Cook 
and  Sons,  Ludgate  Circus,  London,  E.C.,  are  always 
ready  to  give  information  about  any  line. 

The  "  P.  and  O."  Steam  Navigation  Company, 
Leadenhall  Street,  E.C.,  can  furnish  handbooks  and 
literature  descriptive  of  Papua,  if  asked.  The  Aus- 
tralian Commonwealth  Government  Offices  at  Victoria 
Street,  Westminster,  will  also  give  pamphlets  and 
information  to  applicants. 

Outfits  for  Papua  should  be  of  the  simplest  kind. 
White  duck  or  drill  suits  of  "  patrol "  pattern,  strong 
light  khaki  clothing,  flannel  shirts,  heavy  nailed  boots, 
woollen  puttees,  are  the  principal  requisites.  Colonial 
felt  hats  are  more  commonly  worn  than  helmets,  as 
sunstroke  is  very  rare.  Ordinary  requirements  for 
men — such  as  hats,  ties,  shirts — can  be  obtained  in 
Papua  when  necessary,  as  there  are  one  or  two  stores 
of  a  simple  kind.  Camping  outfits,  mosquito  nets, 
tinware,  tinned  foods,  can  also  be  bought  in  Port 
Moresby  and  Samarai. 

Riding  gear  is  not  of  much  use,  as  horses  can  only 
be  used  about  Port  Moresby  and  the  Astrolabe.  A 
steam  or  oil  launch  is  invaluable  to  any  traveller  who 
can  afford  to  bring  one  up  from  Sydney  or  Brisbane. 


VISITING    PAPUA  319 

Steam  is  to  be  preferred  for  work  up  the  rivers  and 
along  the  coasts,  as  the  distances  are  great  and 
currents  variable,  and  a  launch  may  very  easily  run 
short  of  fuel — in  which  case  the  steam  launch,  which 
can  at  a  pinch  be  worked  witii  wood,  will  have  a 
distinct  advantage  over  the  oil  launch,  in  spite  of  the 
superior  compactness  and  convenience  of  the  latter. 

It  is  possible  to  ascend  the  rivers  in  native  canoes 
or  boats,  though  progress  is  necessarily  slow  and  un- 
certain, owing  to  the  great  volume  and  strong  current 
of  the  rivers. 

The  best  season  for  visiting  Papua  is  the  time 
of  the  south-east  trades,  which  usually  lasts  from 
about  April  to  October,  July  and  August  are 
commonly  the  coolest  months.  During  the  north- 
west monsoon,  from  November  to  March,  the  weather 
is  hot  and  rainy,  and  winds  are  irregular.  An  ex- 
ception, however,  must  be  made  as  regards  visits  to 
the  Western  and  Gulf  divisions.  These  are  most 
easily  reached  in  December,  January,  and  February. 
At  other  times  the  river  bars  are  otten  quite  impass- 
able, owing  to  the  surf. 

Exploring  expeditions  into  the  interior  should  by 
no  means  be  undertaken  "lightly  or  inadvisedly." 
There  is  no  country  in  the  world  that  makes  a  greater 
tax  upon  the  pluck,  determination,  strength,  and 
organising  power  of  explorers  than  Papua  ;  nor  can 
the  unknown  interior  be  reached  without  considerable 
expenditure.  Hundreds  are  not  much  use  when  it 
comes  to  serious  exploring  ;  unless  the  traveller's 
pocket  will  stand  a  call  of  at  least  four  figures,  he  had 
better  not  try  to  tempt  the  fascinating  unknown.  It 
must  also    be    added    that    exploration    in    Papua   is 


320  THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 

surrounded  by  restrictions  that  do  not  obtain  in 
Africa.  If  a  Papuan  explorer  were  to  hang  his  men 
for  misconduct,  he  would  run  a  fair  chance  of  being 
handed  himself  when  he  came  back.  If  he  ill-treated, 
starved,  and  oppressed  his  "  boys  "  ;  if  he  armed  one 
tribe  against  another,  and  conducted  private  wars  ;  if 
he  shot  natives  who  had  not  attempted  to  harm  him, 
and  set  on  fire  villages  deserted  by  their  terrified  in- 
habitants— as  African  explorers  have  done  time  and 
again,  not  only  without  remorse,  but  actually  glorying 
in  their  deeds — he  would  very  probably  be  tried 
and  imprisoned  on  his  return.  The  name  of  science 
is  respected  in  this  far-away  colony,  and  explorers  or 
prospectors  are  always  warmly  welcomed  and  given 
every  possible  help  ;  but  the  price  of  blood  that  has 
been  paid  for  so  much  of  modern  discovery  on  the 
African  continent  will  never  be  paid  in  Papua,  even 
if  the  locked  doors  remain  locked  for  another  half- 
century. 

The  possibility  of  exploration  under  humane  con- 
ditions was  proved  by  the  Mackay-Little  exploring 
journey  in  1908-9,  already  referred  to.  During  six 
months' journeying  through  unknown,  hostile  country, 
only  one  carrier  out  of  nearly  eighty  was  lost,  all  the 
others  returning  in  good  condition  to  their  homes  ; 
and  no  natives  of  the  country  travelled  through  were 
killed. 

For  information  about  Papua,  whether  from  the 
settler's,  traveller's,  explorer's,  or  investor's  point  of 
view,  application  can  always  be  made  to  the  Govern- 
ment officials — Lieutenant-Governor,  Government 
Secretary,  or  Director  of  Agriculture  at  Port  Moresby. 


APPENDIX  321 


HEALTH   CONDITIONS 


Concerning  the  health  conditions  of  the  country, 
the  opinion  of  Dr.  R.  Fleming  Jones,  the  Govern- 
ment Medical  Officer  at  Samarai,  carries  special  weight, 
as  Dr.  Jones,  besides  his  residence  of  five  years  in 
Papua,  can  claim  experience  and  study  of  tropical 
diseases  in  Cuba,  the  West  Indies,  the  Southern 
United  States,  and  the  Philippines. 

"  Papua  is  singularly  free  from  tropical  diseases, 
considering  its  geographical  position,  and  on  the 
whole  is  certainly  healthier  than  India,"  said  this 
authority  to  the  writer.  "There  is  no  cholera,  no 
plague,  and  enteric  is  unknown.  There  is  no  yellow 
fever,  no  Malta  fever,  no  sleeping  sickness.  Malaria 
and  occasional  outbreaks  of  dysentery  are  really  the 
only  tropical  diseases  of  importance,  and  there  is  no 
disease  which  yields  so  readily  to  proper  treatment  as 
malaria,  or  that  can  be  guarded  against  so  success- 
fully, if  people  will  only  take  the  trouble.  The 
worst  of  it  is  that  generally  they  will  not.  When- 
ever I  hear  of  a  new  plantation  being  opened  up,  1 
confidently  expect  that  the  white  people  engaged 
thereon  will  go  down  with  fever,  one  after  another. 
They  will  come  into  Samarai  sick  and  debilitated 
and  complain  of  the  country,  not  of  their  own  care- 
lessness. The  Anopheles,  which  is  the  malaria-bear- 
ing mosquito,  bites  after  sunset  as  a  general  rule,  and 
if  a  man  intelligently  uses  a  good  net — in  the  absence 
of  a  mosquito-proof  room,  which,  however,  ought  to 
be  one  of  the  first  things  provided  for  him — and 
searches  this  with  a  light  before  he  turns  in,  he  will 


322 


THE   NEW   NEW   GUINEA 


probably  escape  fever.  The  mosquito  net  should 
always  be  used,  even  with  a  mosquito-proof  room, 
as  an  additional  precaution, 

"  Papua  has  certainly  suffered  by  confusion,  in  the 
public  mind,  with  the  Guinea  coast  of  Africa, — quite 
unjustly,  as  the  health  conditions  are  infinitely  better 
in  Papua.  The  truth  really  is  that  this  country  is  as 
healthy  as  any  other  lying  in  the  same  latitudes. 
Tropical  and  equatorial  countries  are  not  as  healthy 
for  white  people  as  temperate  climates — everyone 
knows  that  ;  but  with  the  application  of  the  most 
elementary  rules  of  tropical  sanitation,  with  which 
every  new-comer  to  a  tropical  country  should  be 
familiar,  there  is  no  reason  why  settlers  should  not 
enjoy  good  health  here.  With  regard  to  the  question 
of  stimulants,  blackwater  fever  is  undoubtedly  in 
many  cases  connected  with  their  abuse,  though  cer- 
tainly not  caused  by  drinking.  The  most  important 
matter  in  the  prevention  of  blackwater  fever  is  simply 
the  prevention  of  malaria,  as  it  is  almost  always  in 
individuals  who  have  had  repeated  attacks  of  malaria 
that  blackwater  occurs.  I  believe  that  a  strictly 
moderate  use  of  stimulants  does  no  harm,  even  good 
in  some  cases,  but  moderation,  in  enervating  climates 
like  this,  seems  to  be  so  difficult  that  it  is  safer  to 
counsel  total  abstinence" 


PRINTED   BY 

WILLIAM    BKENDON    AND   SON,    LTD. 

I'LVMOUTH 


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